


The Siren

by daddybarnes1



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Big Sister Wanda Maximoff, Bisexual Female Character, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, bucky barnes deserves the world, clint is a man child, wanda claims ofc as her sister
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23428996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daddybarnes1/pseuds/daddybarnes1
Summary: Melissa Button didn't consider herself as anything other than a normal girl.Yes, she was a 19 year old that had lived alone for most of her teen years.Yes, she was a bit of a child geniusAnd yes, she had magic.But that was normal, right?{CA: Civil War & SM: Homecoming}
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Original Female Character(s), Wanda Maximoff & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	1. "Kind of."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa joins a cult - kind of.

**||** **"Kind Of"**

Tony Stark left the Parker apartment, his thoughts racing impossibly fast. Despite his best efforts to maintain his (patented and perfected) casually aloof demeanour, he couldn't stop thinking about the Sokovia Accords and all the trouble Cap had caused by not signing the damn thing - and then disappearing with half of the Avengers.

The billionaire didn't want to believe he had just recruited a teenager to help him but here he was in Queens, convincing a fifteen year old in a onesie to get on a plane to Germany. Granted, the kid was pretty special and crazy smart, but that wasn't the point. The situation was absolutely ridiculous. He almost hoped that he was just having a fever dream, and that he'd wake up before this whole mess had started. 

His train of thought was halted by a voice filtering through the dingy stairwell, the most beautiful one he had ever heard. As he made his way down onto the second floor, he realised the voice was singing. But it wasn't like anything he had ever heard. The - what he assumed to be a young girls - voice, it was almost drawing him in.

He moved along the hallway towards the source, finding the last door on the left wide open. Hoping he wasn't being as creepy as he felt, and at this point almost all hope was lost, he took a careful step through the it and looked around.

Inside was a teenage girl, possibly only a couple of years older than the boy he had just left, softly twirling in circles with her eyes closed. She was singing quietly to herself, her voice sounding angelic and magnified by the otherwise empty apartment. But what caught Tony's attention was the things around her, the seemingly _floating_ things.

A tray of heavenly smelling cupcakes removed itself from the oven, lifting out of the baking tray and onto a cooling rack. With each line of the song she wove through the kitchen, eyes still closed, barely needing to turn her wrist for the things around her to do as she wished. A light purple glow, that reminded Tony all too much of Wanda's red, emanated from her fingertips.

As the cakes finished icing themselves and landed on the kitchen counter, which Tony watched with more than a little confusion, the girl turned around and finally opened her eyes. She gasped in shock at Tony's presence and the few things that were still floating crashed to the floor.

The two stood in silence for a moment, just staring at each other. Tony took off his sunglasses, folded them and put them in his jacket pocket.  
"The door was, uhm, open." He stuttered, pointing back at it.

Tony Stark rarely found himself speechless, if at all - and yet he couldn't think of anything else to say.

The young girl stared at him, her eyes filled with unconcealed panic.  
"Y-You're Tony Stark. You're in my apartment, you saw me, and you're Tony Stark. Oh _god_." She said. The last word came out choked as her heart leapt into her throat.

Tony took half a second to collect himself, needing a moment to comprehend what he had just watched. (He may be used to Wanda's powers now, but magic - and he says the word as distastefully as he could - still came as a shock to him.)  
"What's your deal?" He asked her, waving his hands at the fallen cooking instruments. "How did you just-"

The girl cuts him off with a hush, slamming the front door shut with a flick of her wrist. Her already racing heart sped up at the thought of being exposed.  
"Shit, dude, my neighbours might hear you." She moved forwards to snap at him, momentarily forgetting who she was speaking to.

It was an instinct she had cultivated over the course of her short life, no one could know about her powers - it was dangerous for anyone to be involved with her.

"Did you just call me 'dude'?" Tony asked, raising his eyebrows at her and matching her step forwards.

Her embarrassment almost overtook her fear. Almost.

"Sorry, Mr Stark." She apologised, taking a couple of stumbled steps back.

Tony waved her off, mildly amused but more interested in the impressive ability she had displayed.   
"Tell me what you can do." He says, leaving no room for discussion.

"What do you mean?" The girl asks, wringing her hands together nervously.

"I mean, can you just make things fly or is there more?" He asks, moving to lean against the dining table.

She was definitely confused and she knew it was written on her face - Tony Stark was in her apartment, asking her about her powers - but decided she wasn't going to deny the literal billionaire when he asked a question.

"I can do a vague form of mind control." The girl put in, shrugging her shoulders.

She didn't really know how to describe her powers in a way that would make sense. She could do a great many things, and she had never really tested her limits. They were a part of her, she had been using them since they first manifested almost eight years ago.

"Meaning..." Tony trailed off, looking for clarification on the 'vague' part.

"I can pull myself and someone else into their subconscious, it just looks like a kind of white room. It'll feel real while you're in there, then they'll know it wasn't physically real once I bring us back out." She explained.

Tony didn't really know what she meant, but also didn't want to find out the hard way, so he let it go.   
"Anything else?" He asked.

"Minor elemental control." She tells him. This was one ability she found the most useful. Late for work and need coffee? Boiling hot water in seconds. No air conditioning? Have a cold breeze.

"Like the _Last Airbender_?" Tony asked, a grin making it's way into his face.

"Essentially." She relented, not wanting to get into specific science behind elemental control. It was a boring subject, and frankly - she hoped that he never heard her say this - she didn't think he could keep up with her.

"Sounds promising." Tony nodded, thinking over how she could be useful in bringing in Cap and his misfits.

He didn't want to recruit another teenager but at this point, he was desperate. Barnes needed to be brought in, and Cap needed to be stopped before he ruined them all. With her skill set, he might just need her.

"Uhm, I don't mean to be rude, but what are you doing in Queens?" The girl asks, tilting her head at him.

Tony took a deep breath, wondering how to explain his current predicament without sounding crazy. He settles on a single word.   
"Recruiting."

"For the Avengers?" She gasps, eyes widening. She loved the Avengers, she thought they were amazing - they had very publicly saved the world twice, and cultivated a mass following. It was hard not to be fascinated with them, the mix matched group of super heroes. 

She was so shocked at the thought that she missed Tony's slight flinch.   
"Kind of." He replied, voice a little tighter. "I was just upstairs talking to some kid around your age, Spider-Man."

Tony mimed shooting her with webs, which got a laugh out of the short girl.

After a second, she began to frown to herself.   
"My age?" She mumbled. "But the only person in the building _near_ my age is- " She cut herself off with a gasp. "Oh my god, Peter?"

"Parker, yeah." Tony agreed, momentarily forgetting that Peter said no one knew about his powers. "You know him?"

Her heart began to speed up again, the thought of Peter being Spider-Man sending her into another panic.  
"He's my best friend, I've known him since he was born." She says, quietly. "Peter _can't_ be Spider-Man, no way."

"I assure you that he is." Tony tells her firmly. "He webbed me to his bedroom door when I threatened to tell his unusually attractive aunt about his after school activities."

The teen didn't appreciate the comment about May, who was a wonderful woman and terrible cook, but let it pass in favour of worrying for her friend.   
"God, no, she'd have a heart attack. That's _insane_." She said, more to herself than to her uninvited house guest.

"Well, now you get to be Avengers together. Kind of." He tells her, hoping to lighten the mood again. He does not succeed.

Her eyes widen immediately.   
"No, Mr Stark. I can't- Peter can't know about me!"

"Why not?" Tony sighs, sounding almost like a childish whine. "You know about him!"

She stutters for a second, wondering whether she should tell him that she's feared since she discovered her powers that she'd accidentally hurt him, but decided against it. 

"Spider-Man only appeared a few months ago. I've had these powers for years." She explained. "I've been keeping it from him because I thought he'd think I was a freak, he can never know I've been lying to him."

Tony thought it over, making a plan in his head. He snaps his fingers.   
"Tell you what, I'll get you a suit with a mask."

The teen shakes her head, pointedly not noticing the desperation in his eyes.   
"He'll recognise my voice." She points out.

"I'll put in a voice modulator." Tony pleads. He really wanted the girl to agree, he knew that her powers could be extremely useful to his team.

"You really think I'd be useful?" She asks, before slapping her hand over her mouth.

Tony reeled back, a look of genuine fear flashing over his face.   
"Did you just _read my mind?"_

"I'm sorry, you were thinking really hard!"

Tony stared at her, and then with wide eyes motioned for her to keep explaining her extremely confusing answer.

The teen cringes. "When people do that, their thoughts can accidentally project onto me, I don't want you to think I'm invading your privacy. It's not something I can always control, especially when someone's thoughts are tied to a strong emotion."

She spoke quickly, her words jumbling together in some parts. She had never liked that specific ability of hers, but it was the hardest to control. When people projected, whether she liked it or not, she heard them.

"Okay. Ignoring _that_ terrifying discovery, I do think you'd be helpful." Tony told her, trying to keep his thoughts quiet - whatever the fuck that meant.

"Helpful enough to go through the trouble of hiding me from Peter, who is far too nosy for his own good, and will most definitely be suspicious?" The girl clarified.

"Yes."

"Okay."

The word was out of her mouth before she could really even think about it. This was a chance that she didn't realise she had been waiting for, a chance to use her powers for something other than making cupcakes - maybe even use them to help others.

"Great." Tony clapped his hands. "I'll have someone pick you up and take you to the airport. You ever been to Germany?"

The girl shook her head, her hands clasped together in a nervous stance.

"Okay, you'll love it. Don't worry, I already have a lie spun for the parentals. Where are they?" Tony asked, looking around the seemingly empty apartment.

"No lie needed." The teen sighed. "I don't have any parents."

"Guardian, then." Tony said.

"Don't have one of those either." She shrugged.

"There has to be someone." Tony said, frowning now. How could this girl - who could not be that much older than Peter - be living here on her own?

"Technically, there's my sister." The girl told him.

"Where is she?" Tony asks.

"Where's the nearest drug den?" The girl asks back with a scoff, crossing her arms and shaking her head.

Tony considers her for a moment, the lonely and powerful teenager, but his fear of showing emotion caused him to take a step back.   
"Okay, easier for me." He shrugs, turning towards the door.

"Mr Stark!" She calls after him.

"What is it, kid?" He asks, looking back at her.

"Is whatever you need us for safe? Will Peter be safe?"

Tony notes to himself that she didn't ask for herself, but that she asked for Peter's sake.  
"I wont lie, its not 100% safe. But I'll make sure you both aren't too badly bruised afterwards."

The teen snorts at the obvious evasion, but nods. "That'll do, I guess."

"What's your name kid?" Tony asks, realising that he had never asked.

"Melissa Button." She tells him.

"Melissa. Okay." He frowned in thought. "Well, with the singing and magic - what about Siren?" Tony says to her.

"Siren?" She asks back, confused.

"For your 'kind of' Avenger name? Can't call you Melissa if you're hiding from Parker." Tony explains with a hand wave.

"Siren." She says to herself, finding that it slips perfectly off her tongue. "Yeah, okay."

"See you in Germany, Siren." Tony nods at her, heading out of the apartment and closing the door behind himself.

Melissa stares after him, wondering if she just accidentally created a dream for herself - it happened once and she has never let herself forget. She pinches her arm, deciding that she wasn't dreaming, and begins to smile.

"I'm an Avenger." She laughs, then quietly adds to her statement. "Kind of."


	2. "Peekaboo."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Airport battles, Avengers and Magic - oh my!

**||** **"Peekaboo"**

Melissa sat tensely in her living room, her foot incessantly tapping against the cool laminate flooring. She was dressed in a simple pair of dark denim jeans and a loose grey boyfriend tee - dressing herself had been the hardest part of her morning, she wasn't exactly sure what to wear. She was supposed to be getting her 'suit' from Mr Stark. The key words there was 'supposed to be'. Tony had only offered the suit last night. He was a genius, yeah, but surely there was no way he could have designed it, built it, _and_ had it ready in the space of twelve hours. Right?

Well, she was about to find out.

A sharp knock on her front door set her poor heart pounding in her ears as she jumped up to open it. It swung open to reveal a tall, stocky, bearded man.

"You're Melissa, right?" The man asked, stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind him.

"Y-Yeah." She stuttered out her reply, watching as he surveyed her cramped apartment.

"Good. Would have been awkward if you weren't, cause I've closed the door now." The man said, with a wry grin. 

Melissa snorted in surprise at his joke, deciding there and then that she liked this man. Her reaction seemed to be what he was looking for, as he then nodded to himself and got started with business.

"I'm Happy, head of Security at Stark Industries." He introduced himself. "And I have a gift for you."

Melissa finally noticed that Happy was carrying a large metal case. He placed it onto the dining room table with a resounding thud, and flicked it open.

Melissa was at a loss for words.

The suit in front of her was beyond incredible, more amazing than she could have ever imagines. It seemed to be based on the Iron Man design, but made with a kevlar like material. The suit was white and grey, but the hands and mask were purple - the same purple as her magic.

"Oh my god." She whispered, looking over every detail.

Happy snorted a her word choice.  
"I was told to correct you if you say that." He laughed.

Melissa - with more than a little effort - tore her gaze from the suit to look at Happy.   
"Correct me? What was I supposed to say?"

"Oh my _Tony_."

Melissa couldn't even find it in herself to be shocked, she just giggled.   
"He's ridiculous."

"Yeah, but he's rich. He passes it off well." Happy shrugs.

Melissa nods her silent agreement, reaching out to touch her suit. It felt _amazing_.

"Put the suit on, pack anything you need, then get downstairs and into the car. You have ten minutes then I'll be down with Parker." Happy told her, giving her a light clasp on the shoulder then turning to leave.

_This was really happening._

**||**

The car ride to the airport was awkward, to put it lightly.

Melissa wasn't sure how to act around Peter. Happy had told the boy that she had signed a confidentiality agreement for the duration of the 'internship retreat', so she couldn't tell anyone his secret. But she was still unsure and cautious around her supposed best friend - what if he figured out who she was? Peter may have his dumb moments, but he's definitely not stupid.

"So, uh, what's your thing?" Peter asked, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

Melissa looked up from her folded hands to find him pointing his phone at her. _Of course he was recording this._

"Um, difficult to explain. Let's just say I'm a witch." Melissa answered, her modulated voice coming out more gravely and harsh than her real one.

Silver lining; her suit was easily the best thing she had ever worn. It fit like a glove, and she never wanted to take it off. Ever.

"Oh. That's c-cool." Peter stumbled, fidgeting in his seat.

"You don't have to be awkward around me." Melissa told him, trying to soften her voice as much as the modulator would allow.

Peter looked up at her with a confused expression, setting his phone down so it was balanced and facing them both.  
"I'm not." He said, though his voice betrayed he did not quite believe it himself.

"Yes, you are." Melissa told him with a derisive snort. "We have one job, help To- I mean, Mr Stark. Let's not mess it up."

"Okay." Peter whispered, struggling to meet her eyes.

Melissa waited for a second, watching the younger boy out of the corner of her eye. Peter shifted in his seat, his eyes flickering between her and Happy in the front of the car.

"You're still being awkward." She said after a moment.

Peter sighed deeply, turning to face her with his best puppy dog eyes.  
"I'm trying my best."

Melissa giggled, nudging his shoulder.  
"We're friends now, so legally you _can't_ be awkward. I'll take you to court, Spider Man."

"You're funny." Peter said, picking up the camera and pointing it back at her.

For the purpose of his dumb video, Melissa shrugged and smirked at the camera.   
"I know."

**||**

Happy checked the three of them into the most lavish hotel the two teens had ever seen in their lives. Their rooms were more like apartments than rooms, sprawling out further than the two teens _actual_ apartments. They couldn't believe what they were seeing, they were both still in shock over the private jet they had taken to get here.

Melissa could finally remove her mask, now that Peter had disappeared to his own room. She wandered around her room, wondering how the rest of her day would play out. She really wanted to do her best, for Tony - she owed him for keeping her secret.

She wasn't exactly sure what the problem was, Happy had explained it as a disagreement over something called the 'Sokovia Accords'. It seemed that Captain America and a few other Avengers were reluctant to sign, that the good Captain was protecting his friend who was a wanted fugitive? Something like that. It was Tony's job to bring them in, and he had recruited Avengers of his own.

Happy had let her know who was on the team, and she was most definitely excited to meet them. Natasha Romanoff in particular was an idol of hers, so even being in the same room as her would be crazy. She was also a big fan of Colonel Rhodes, she had loved watching new reports on the Iron Patriot - though she thought that War Machine was a better name.

In fact, being near any of the Avengers was a dream of hers. Seeing extraordinary people out there saving the world, people who were weird like her, it had helped her come to terms with what she was. 

She just hoped this meeting didn't end with them sending her home in a body bag. 

**||**

A few hours later found Melissa discreetly walking into an evacuated airport terminal, waiting for her signal to join the fight. She was definitely nervous, but she was good at keeping that hidden. She listened over the comms as Peter revealed himself to Caps team, The two 'team leaders' as it were arguing with each other. It didn't take long for the whole situation to go sideways.

" _I got two in the terminal, Wilson and Barnes. Siren, you're up_." Rhodey's voice called to her.

"On it." She called back. She sent out a few magical feelers, feeling them to her left. She turned tail and ran towards them, her hands glowing purple as she readied herself for a fight.

As she neared them, she saw Peter in his suit climbing along the windows.

"What is _that_?" The one with the metal arm, the Winter Soldier, asked.

"Everyone's got a gimmick now." Sam, the Falcon, groaned.

Peter swings through the glass wall and kicks Sam backwards, Melissa having to step sideways to avoid him. Bucky throws a punch at Peter which Melissa trapped with her magic before it could hit him.

"You have a metal arm? That is awesome, dude!" Peter said to him.

Bucky, with wide eyes, looks sideways at Melissa. She waves at him and then proceeds to launch him backwards as hard as she can.

Sam picks himself up and flies at Peter, lifting him off the ground and further along the corridor.

"You have the right to remain silent!" Peter cries. He manages to fend Sam off, swinging after him.

Melissa chases them both, Bucky following hot on her heels. Her eyes widen as he picks up a fallen sign and throws it at Peter's back.

"Hey buddy, I think you lost this!" Peter shouts at him, throwing the sign back.

Bucky ducked behind a pillar and out of the way at the last second, stepping right into Melissa's path.

"Peekaboo." Melissa smirks.

She throws her hands out to her sides, lifting up some fallen debris and aiming it at him. He manages to block most of it with his metal arm, stepping forward to kick her feet out from underneath her. He watches as she falls backwards- _and then disappears_.

He looks at the place she was just in, wholly confused and very concerned. She steps out of her portal behind him, taps him on the shoulder, and as he turns to face her she delivers a punch he never would have thought her small body capable of.

He lays on the ground for a second, listening to her footsteps disappearing, and grumbles to himself.   
"I'm too old for this shit."

When Melissa neared the other two, she saw that Peter had managed to web up Sam, trapping him to the glass banister. She stood underneath where Peter was sitting on a bulletin board and crossed her arms in amusement.

"Are those wings carbon fibre?" Peter asked, his eyes momentarily flitting down to see if Melissa was unharmed - Mr Stark had told him to watch her back, after all.

"Is this stuff coming out of you?" Sam asked back, looking down at the webbing in mild disgust.

"That would explain the rigidity-flexibility ratio, which, gotta say, that's awesome, man." Peter continued, ignoring the question.

Melissa rolled her eyes at her friend. No matter the situation, he could always find time to be a nerd.

"I don't know if you've been a fight before but there's usually not this much talking." Sam sassed, looking between the two teens.

Peter shrugs his shoulders. "Alright, sorry, my bad." He swings down to kick Sam, but Bucky jumps in the way. They both smash through the glass and fall down onto the next floor. Peter webs Bucky's arm to the floor, and throws another web at Sam for good measure.  
"Guys, look. I'd love to keep this up but I've only got one job here today and I gotta impress Mr. Stark, so, l'm really sorry."

He aims at them again, but is stopped when Sam's drone attaches to his wrist. Redwing drags Peter through the glass wall and drops him outside - emitting a high pitched squeal from the teen.

"You couldn't have done that earlier?" Bucky asks.

There is a moment of silence before Sam responds. "I hate you."

On the balcony above them, Melissa wanders up to the broken barrier and looks down at them. "Throwing him out the window was a little harsh, don't you think?" She calls down to them.

Neither say anything in reply, so she turns her back on them and lets herself fall backwards.

Both men watch as she falls down from the balcony and a portal opens up underneath her. She disappears through it and it closes, as if it was never there.

"What the hell?" Bucky mumbles in confusion.

"Like I said," Sam replies, working on getting himself out of the webbing. "Everyone's got a gimmick now."

**||**

Melissa's portal dropped her outside, just as Tony held a hand out to pull Natasha up from the ground.

"Is this part of them plan?" Natasha asks him.

"My plan was to go easy on them." Tony replies. "You want to switch it up?"

"I think we should just call it a day." Melissa put in, holding her now bruising knuckle.

She hadn't realised how hard she had hit Bucky in the moment, but now her fist was pulsing in a way she thought was definitely not normal.

They watch as Cap's team run towards the hanger, only to be stopped by Vision. Tony picks up Natasha and Rhodey grabs Melissa, bringing them underneath where Vision was floating. Peter swings over to meet them, T'Challa also moving over to join them.

"Captain Rogers. I know you believe what you're doing is right. But for the collective good you must surrender now."

Tony's team stands together, facing off with Cap's.

"This is gonna end well." Natasha says quietly as the two teams begin to stride towards each other.

"They're not stopping." Peter says. Melissa pulls up in front of him, making sure she would take the brunt of the fight.

"Neither are we." Tony tells him. Everyone breaks into a full sprint.

Melissa leans sideways as Clint fires an arrow at her, continuing to run at him. He fired another, which she stopped with her magic and disintegrated into ash.

"She's a magic wielder." Wanda says from behind him.

"Shit." Clint swears, aiming an explosive arrow at a nearby Tony. The girl was surprised at the change in target and failed to catch it, resulting in her being thrown to the side by the blast.

She landed hard, rolling to pick herself back up. She was to the left of a sparring Bucky and T'Challa.

T'Challa pinned Bucky down, bringing out his claws to swipe at him. He was stopped by Wanda who threw him across the airport. This gave Melissa an opening. She created a shield around herself and Bucky, making them invisible to the rest.

She pinched her arm and ran in front of Bucky. The soldier made a move to hit her, but stopped as her mask fell back into the suit and he saw the tears threatening to spill.

"You were in DC. You killed my _mom_!" She cried, watching as the Soldiers face dropped. He began to stutter out some mangled form of apology, that's when Melissa dropped the act.

"I'm kidding, I just needed you to drop your guard." She told him.

He had no chance to dodge as her hand slammed into his forehead. 


	3. "Try this on for size."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight continues, and Melissa questions her loyalties.

**|| "Try This On For Size"**

Bucky opened his eyes to find himself in a large white room, with no windows and only one door - that looked to be chained shut. He looked himself over and was shocked at the sight. He was in his army uniform, his dress greens, and he had two flesh arms.

"Sorry about the lie, but I needed a way in."

Bucky looked up to find Melissa, though she wasn't how he had last seen her. She was wearing a pair of dark denim jeans and a loose white t-shirt. He brown hair was let down, flowing down across her shoulders in gentle beach waves. Bucky couldn't help but notice that she was rather pretty when she wasn't kicking his ass. Melissa smiles internally at his projected train of thought but doesn't comment.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"Technically, we're still in the airport." Melissa told him. "But if you mean what is this place, well, it's the access point to your subconscious."

Bucky stared at her, the non-answer only bringing him more questions. He had remembered that he used to be a science nerd, and this definitely sounded like something he would be interested in hearing about.

"I don't really have time to explain, maybe one day I'll be able to. For now, I just need to see the real you." She told him, stepping forwards and holding out her hand to him.

Despite the fact that she had previously delivered a punch that more than knocked him off his feet, Bucky decided to trust her. He held out his hand for her to take.

She took it, closing her eyes in concentration. Bucky watched curiously as a few emotions passed lightly across her face. Suddenly, she let out a pained gasp, dropping his hand and stepping backwards. Bucky's eyes widened in alarm, watching a she reached up to touch her face with a grimace. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Oh, you poor soul." She said quietly.

Bucky found that he couldn't say anything in response, he simply watched as she struggled to come to terms with herself and what she had evidently seen. It was a curious thing; he didn't know how her powers worked, but there was a chance that she now knew more about his past than _he_ did.

Finally, she dropped her shoulders down and let out a humourless laugh.

"Tony's going to kill me." She grumbled, stepping forwards and touching her fingers to Bucky's forehead.

His eyes snapped open to find himself back in the airport. He watched as Melissa let her suit's mask fall back into place and took a step away from him.

"Go." She told him.

Bucky looked at her like she'd grown a second head.   
"What?" He frowned.

He could almost feel her rolling her eyes at him.  
"Go!" She shouted, turning and running in the other direction.

He watched her run up behind Clint, who had just fired an arrow Tony, and wiped his legs out from beneath him.

Deciding not to question it, he turned and ran.

**||**

Melissa rounded the corner after narrowly escaping Clint just as Scott went super-sized, grabbing onto Rhodey's ankles.

"Holy shit!" Peter exclaims, looking up at him.

"Okay, tiny dude is big now. He's big now." Rhodey shouts, struggling in his grasp.

"Give me back my Rhodey." Tony shouts, getting kicked feet first by a flying Sam.

Scott throws Rhodey away, Peter quickly swinging after him.  
"I got him!" He shouts, catching him in a web and pulling him to a stop.

Scott kicks a bus towards T'Challa. Vision descends and braces himself, splitting the bus in two. T'Challa spots Steve and Bucky sprinting past, and heads after them. Chasing Sam, Iron Man evades Scott swinging the wing of a plane at him.

"Okay, anybody on our side hiding any shocking and fantastic abilities they'd like to disclose? I'm open to suggestion." Tony shouts over the comms.

"Try this on for size." Melissa says quietly, racing into the centre of the airport. She lifts her hands up and smacks them off the concrete with a loud shout, ice spreading from beneath her hands. It engulfs the entire runway, members from both teams now struggling to keep their balance on the slippery surface.

" _Last_ _Airbender_." Tony scoffs. "Good work kid."

Melissa slips through another portal, coming up in front of the hanger containing the quinjet. 

Vision fires a shining beam of energy from his mind stone at the control tower, which begins to collapse towards the entrance of the hangar - directly on top of Steve and Bucky. Wanda moved to slow it down, but was caught up fighting T'Challa.

Melissa throws her hands forwards in a burst of power, stopping the tower completely in it's path. She pushed it back up and disintegrated the debris into ash with a sharp twist of her hands. She felt her eyes change, glowing a bright purple. She knew she had to pace herself now - her eyes only changed when she pushed herself, using more of her powers in one go than she was used to.

Steve turned to look at her as she neared, ready for a fight but also in awe of her power. Bucky couldn't help but smile slightly.

"How many times do I have to tell you to go?" She sighs, jogging behind them and into the hanger as her eyes dimmed to their normal golden brown.

Steve looked confused, but Bucky shrugged his shoulders.   
"Maybe one more, just for luck." He said.

Steve's eyes flitted between them, totally lost.

Melissa rolled her eyes, crossing her arms across her chest and nodding to the plane.   
"Get out of here, _before_ you land yourself in a cell."

"You're not gonna stop." Natasha says from behind them.

The group of three turn to face her, though her not-a-question is aimed at Steve.

"You know I can't." Steve replied, his voice sounding more resigned than argumentative.

She nods slightly, then she looks over at Melissa and scoffs at her. "Traitor."

"As if you're any better." Melissa shoots back, though there was no malice in either of their voices. 

"I'm gonna regret this." Natasha sighs, shooting T'Challa who was sneaking in behind the boys with one of her widow bites. She moves past them to keep the king occupied.

Melissa smiles at the two, looking up at Bucky to find him already staring down at her.

"For the last time, _go_." She punctuates it with a gentle shove in the direction of the jet.

Steve and Bucky run for the Quinjet as Natasha keeps T'Challa at bay. Melissa hangs around the Quinjet, hoping to keep any obstacles out of their way. She watches as Steve fires up the engines, lifting off.

Natasha keeps T'Challa back, he leaps up attempting to stop them leaving but can't reach. Natasha smirks.  
"I said I'd help you find him, not catch him. There's a difference."

Piloting the Quinjet, Steve looks over his shoulder and spots War Machine encroaching to the right. Steve pushes forward on the thrusters. Iron Man flies beside War Machine and Falcon follows closely behind them.

Falcon fires small explosives which erupt and buffet War Machine. On Rhodey's command, Vision takes aim and fires his head laser. Falcon spots it coming and tucks into a tumble, causing the laser overshoots and slice through the core on War Machines chest plate. His suit loses power and goes into a spinning free fall.

Melissa watches in horror as he begins to drop out of the sky.

"Rhodey!" Tony calls out, diving down after him.

Melissa throws her hands out, straining to catch Rhodey in mid air. She screams at the energy required to hold the man in place long enough for Tony to get to him, her eyes burning brighter than she had ever felt them burn before. As he hovers in the air, the suit begins to emit black smoke.

Iron Man swoops down towards him, grabbing him in his arms and allowing Melissa to release her hold. She collapses on the runway in a heap, panting and exhausted.

Tony lands with Rhodey in a nearby field. His helmet retracts and he pulls War Machine's face plate clean off. Rhodey is awake but there's a thick line of blood on his face.

"I'm good, I'm okay." He coughs, pushing out the smoke in his lungs. Tony looks down at him, more than relieved. "I'm never saying a word against that kid, ever. I'll kill anyone who does."

Sam swoops down and lands on his feet. His wings retract. "I'm sorry."

Tony shoots him backwards with a blast of energy from the palm of his suit. Vision, carrying Melissa, flies down in front of Falcon. Rhodey smiles over at the young girl.

"Thanks kid." He says. "I really appreciate the assist."

Melissa tiredly walks over to kneel next to him, a strained smile on her face.   
"All in a days work."

Tony looks up at her. He notices her sluggish movement, but there's still work to be done.  
"You up for some more action?"

**||**

A while later, Tony and Melissa fly over a stormy sea in a chopper. The two were quiet after leaving Rhodes at the hospital. He would be okay, though he'd require a small amount of physical therapy due to the hit his back took. Fortunately, no permanent damage.

Tony was looking at surveillance images on a tablet computer.

" _The Task Force called for a psychiatrist as soon as Barnes was captured._ " FRIDAY told him. " _The UN dispatched Dr. Theo Broussard from Geneva within the hour. He was met by this man_."

"Did you run facial recognition yet?" Tony asked.

" _What do I look like_?" FRIDAY sassed back.

Melissa snorted. Of course his AI was just like him.

"Uh, I don't know. I've been picturing a red head." Tony says, tilting his head.

" _You must be thinking of someone else_." FRIDAY tells him.

"Must be."

" _The fake doctor is actually Colonel Helmut Zemo, Sokovian Intelligence_." Tony projects the image. " _Zemo ran Echo Skorpion, a Sokovian covert kill squad_."

"So, what happened to the real Broussard?" Tony asked.

" _He was found dead in a Berlin hotel room. Where police also found a wig and facial prosthesis approximating the appearance of one James Buchanan Barnes_."

Tony let out a deep sigh.   
"Son of a bitch. Get this to Ross."

" _Yes, Boss._ "

"What does that mean?" Melissa asked, looking over at Tony.

"It means Barnes didn't actually do it." Tony replied, looking as if it caused him physical pain to say it.

**||**

Tony flies the chopper low over the broiling sea, operating the aircraft with a touch screen computer in a wall panel. Melissa awes at the tech, more than a little star struck.

" _This is the Raft Prison Control. You're clear for landing, Mr. Stark._ "

The sea swells and surges as Raft Prison rises up from beneath. A huge, fortified, circular structure with small lights around the sides.

Two semi-circular doors open up in the flat circular top. The chopper lands on a helipad and the doors close above it. Tony, who's left arm is in a sling, and Melissa, who's right hand is tightly bandaged, walk up to Secretary Ross.

"So? You got the files?" Tony says to him. "Let's reroute the satellites, start facial scanning for this Zemo guy."

"You seriously think I'm gonna listen to you after that fiasco in Leipzig? You're lucky you're not in one of these cells." Ross barks at him, then looks over at Melissa. "Why is there a child in my prison?"

Melissa moves forwards with a glare - unsure herself whether she's going to shout at him or hit him - but is stopped by Tony placing a hand on her shoulder.

"With me." Is all Tony tells him.

Ross looks at Tony sternly and leads them on through a thick, steel security door. Soldiers stand guard in an operations room. Tony and Melissa look at a surveillance screen. It shows Wanda, sitting hunched and bedraggled in a cramped prison cell. 

Ross speaks with his guards before allowing them to enter the secure room. Melissa snaps her helmet shut on Tony's instruction; he wanted to keep her identity a secret from the other Avengers until this mess could be sorted out, this wasn't the right way to meet them.

The security door opens and the two walk into a chamber surrounded by large, bared windows. Beyond the windows are a number of prison cells. 

Clint starts clapping sarcastically in his cell.   
"The Futurist, gentlemen! The Futurist is here! He sees all! He knows what's best for you, whether your like it or not."

"Give me a break, Barton. I had no idea they'll put you here. Come on." Tony tells him.

"Yeah, well, you knew they'd put us somewhere, Tony." Clint retorts, more than a little malice in his tone.

Melissa looks over them with shame; she had helped put them here, this isn't how she wanted to use her powers. She kneels down in front of Wanda's cell, ignoring Tony and Clint arguing childishly behind her.

She raised her hand and discreetly made Wanda a little more comfortable, just enough so that it wouldn't be suspicious. It was difficult, this place was somehow warned against magic, but she pushed through. 

" _You don't deserve this_." Melissa told her, speaking into her mind so only she could her.

Melissa's heart clenched as a tear fell down Wanda's face.

She stood up and turned back to the two arguing men, just as Clint began acting like a five year old.

"La, la, la, la, la . . ." He sang, plugging his ears.

"Alright, you're all grown up, you got a wife and kids. I don't understand, why didn't you think about them before you chose the wrong side?" Tony scoffs at him, walking away.

"You gotta watch your back with this guy. There's a chance he's gonna break it."

"Hank Pym always said, you never can trust a Stark." Scott said from his cell, earning a side eye from Tony.

"Who are you?" Tony asked.

Melissa rolled her eyes at the comment.

"How's Rhodes?" Sam asked.

"Without Siren here, he's could be paralysed. Or dead. I think you should say thank you." Tony snaps at him. "What do you need? They feed you yet?"

"You're the good cop now?" Sam asks with raised eyebrows.

"I'm just the guy who needs to know where Steve went." Tony retorts.

"Well, you better go get a bad cop, because you're gonna have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass to get information out of me." Sam told him.

Tony holds up his phone, leaning closer to Sam's cell.

"Oh, I just knocked the 'A' out of their 'AV'. We got about 30 seconds before they realise it's not their equipment." Tony tells them. "Just look. Because that is the fellow who was supposed to interrogate Barnes."

He shows a holographic image of Doctor Broussard.

Tony coughs, preparing himself for his next sentence.   
"Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong."

"That's a first." Sam scoffs.

Tony has to physically bite his tongue, forcing himself to not respond in kind with a nasty comment that he won't be able to take back once he's said it.

"Cap is definitely off the reservation but he's about to need all the help he can get. We don't know each other very well. You don't have to..." Tony trails off.

"Sam." Melissa buts in, edging into his thoughts to gently show him the images of Barnes and the other Winter Soldiers that she had previously seen in his mind. "Please."

They needed to get there before this Zemo guy, she knew that now. If that meant showing Sam what she had seen in Bucky's mind, so be it.

"Hey, alright." Sam says, reaching up to cover his eyes as if that would help stop the things he was seeing.

Tony leans closer to the window. Sam sighs and looks uneasy. "Look, I'll tell you... but you have to go alone and as a friend."

"Easy."


	4. "This is bullshit!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony learns a devastating secret, and Melissa tries her best.

**|| "This Is Bullshit!"**

Tony and Melissa enter the Siberian facility. Both were immeasurably tense, but for different reasons. Tony wanted to put the whole mess with Cap and Barnes to rest, to shove them in those cells with the others and try to salvage what was left of the Avengers. Melissa had a feeling things were going to go horribly wrong - she just wasn't sure in who's favour the fight was leaning.

Tony pulled open a set of heavy metal doors that were between them and the two fugitives. The two newcomers walked towards Steve and Bucky, retracting their suit helmets.

"You seem a little defensive." Tony quips.

Bucky kept his gun up, trained on Tony, while Steve walked forwards to meet him with his shield covering his body. Bucky's eyes seem to automatically find Melissa behind Tony, who winks at him and gives him a small wave.

"It's been a long day." Steve tells him, still holding his shield high.

Melissa steps up beside Tony, wondering if Cap would be more receptive to her since she helped him out.  
"At ease, Soldiers. We're not currently after you." She says.

"Then why are you here?" Steve asked them, still keeping his shield up but his grip had loosened under Melissa's gaze.

"Could be your story's not so crazy. Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself." Tony tells him.

"Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork." Steve concedes.   
He finally lowers his shield.   
"It's good to see you, Tony."

"You too, Cap." Tony then sighs and turns to Bucky. "Hey, Manchurian Candidate, you're killing me. There's a truce here. You can drop..."

Steve signs Bucky to lower his weapon and he does.

"Captain, Bucky." Melissa addresses them both, a pleasant smile on her face.

"Siren." Steve nods.

"Melissa." Bucky says, his expression remaining tense but Melissa sees his eyes soften.

Tony eyes dart between the two a few times, and then points at her with an accusatory finger.   
"Why are you on first name basis with him?"

Melissa crosses her arms and looks up at him, an innocent smile on her face.   
"I'm not gonna answer that."

Tony pauses for a moment then drops his head and sighs.   
"Good, I don't wanna know."

**||**

The group of four cautiously walk along the corridor. With his helmet and face plate reengaged, Tony leads Melissa, Steve and Bucky towards the enormous chamber with the capsules standing in it.

"I got heat signatures." Tony tells them.

Melissa gathers from his tone of voice that it's not good news.

"How many?" Steve asks.

"Uh, one."

As they enter the vast chamber the lights come on. Hazy, yellow mist descends within the capsules. As well as Josef, each one contains an enhanced soldier from the 1991 experiment. Steve and the others look around, bewildered.

" _If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep_."

All of the enhanced soldiers have been shot in the head. Bucky stares at Josef's corpse, fragmented flashes of their past passing through his mind.

" _Did you really think I wanted more of you_?"

"What the hell?" Bucky mutters, looking around with his gun raised.

" _I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here_."

A light turns on at the end of the chamber, showing Zemo in a control room. Steve hurls his shield but it flies back, and Tony gently pushes Melissa behind him.

"Please, Captain. The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets." Zemo laughs.

"I'm betting I could beat that." Tony snips.

"Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time. But then you'd never know why you came." Zemo taunts.

"You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" Steve shouts at him.

Steve looks at Zemo through a window.

"I thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you." Zemo told him. "But now that you're standing here, I just realised . . . there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw."

Melissa frowns in confusion, looking at the man hidden in the control room with more than a little distaste. What a pathetic waste of life.

"You're Sokovian. Is that what this is about?" Steve asks.

"Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell." Zemo scoffs. "No. I'm here because I made a promise."

"You lost someone?" Steve asks.

Zemo looks grave and clicks his tongue.  
"I lost everyone. And so will you."

He turns on the screen in front of them, playing some grainy surveillance footage and Steve steps over to the screen.  
"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead, forever."

Tony looks at the freeze frame of a secluded road and the date, December 16 1991. His eyes rove over it, anxiously.  
"I know that road. What is this?" He mumbles to himself.

The four watch in horror as the Winter Soldier crashes a car and kills the occupants, Howard and Maria Stark, stealing the serum from Howard's briefcase and shooting out the camera.

Tony's rage begins to overcome all his rational thinking. Melissa has to take a step away from the group, their heightened emotions projecting onto her. _Grief, pain, guilt, **rage**_.

"Tony. _Tony_." Steve tries to grab his attention.

Consumed with grief and tears glistening in his eyes he turns and looks at Steve.  
"Did you know?" His voice cracks.

"I didn't know it was him." Steve tries to lie, but Tony knows him too well.

"Don't bullshit me, Rogers! Did you know?" Tony snaps.

Steve pauses for a second and Melissa feels her own heart stop in her chest. This is where it was all going to go wrong, she knew it.  
"Yes."

Tony steps back, his chin jutting upwards twitchy. Then he reengages the Iron Man helmet.

He punches Steve to the floor and deflects gunfire from Bucky, disarming him.

Melissa forces herself into focus, blocking out as much of everyone's emotions as she possibly before grabbing Bucky and teleporting them both across the chamber. She drops him onto the floor, while Tony knocks Steve down and flies over to two.

Steve's shield hits Tony, distracting him so that Bucky can try to slip away again. Steve barges him backwards, Tony shoulders him to the floor and shackles his ankles. Bucky throws a punch at Tony who just lifts him and slams him against a nearby machine - and against Melissa who was behind him.

The girl huffs as the super soldiers weight slams into her. She tries to hold Bucky back, to let Steve and Tony fight it out, but the man throws back a metal elbow and hits her in the face.

She collapses to the ground, reaching up to touch her now bleeding nose and bruising face.  
"This is bullshit!" She grumbles, staggering to her feet with a worrying amount of effort.

Tony raises a fist but Bucky twists it. A rocket shoots out of Iron Man's arm, exploding in a ball of fire. Steve slices his shackles as a towering structure of pipework collapses. Tony and Bucky are thrown down a level as twisted metal falls around them, showering them in sparks.

"Get out of here!" Steve shouts to Bucky.

As Bucky tries to run, Tony fires at him but misses. Steve lands in front of him. Bucky hits a control panel and the silo-styled door overhead starts to open.

"It wasn't him, Tony. Hydra had control of his mind!" Steve tries to rationalise with him.

Melissa follows after Bucky, jumping up the platforms after him. 

"Move!"

"It wasn't him!"

Steve grabs Tony's ankle in mid air and smashes it. Tony blocks Steve by shooting down rubble, then falteringly flies up the tower.

" _Left boot jet failing. Flight systems compromised._ "

Above him Bucky leaps from platform to platform, Melissa following as closely as she could. With stuttering jets Tony gives chase, then kicks Bucky and takes aim, but the energy burst rebounds off Steve's shield onto himself. Tony drops like a stone and lands on a lower platform.

"He's not going to stop. Go." Steve tells Bucky.

As Tony soars upwards, Steve leaps and shoots a wire which wraps around his neck and drags him back down. He deflects Steve's shield, then tries to target Bucky.

"Come on, come on." Tony grumbles.   
" _Targeting system's knackered, boss_."  
"I'm eyeballing it."

His helmet retracts and he shuts one eye, taking aim at the opening hatch. He fires and hits the giant hinge which explodes, cutting of Bucky's escape route. The door slams shut and both Bucky and Melissa have to drop down to avoid being hit by it.

Tony flies up, blocks two swings from an iron pipe from Bucky, then grabs him around the neck from behind. Melissa steps in front of them both, pinning Bucky down with her magic.

"Do you even remember them?" Tony asks.

"I remember all of them."

Bucky pushes the three of from the walkway, Steve jumps into them to try and deflect their fall. Bucky lands on a platform while Tony and Steve land on the concrete floor beside and opening in the wall where snow drifts in from outside.

Melissa gets the short end of the stick, slamming into a metal bar chest first and collapsing onto the hard ground, winded and almost unconscious. She tastes the coppery tang of blood in her mouth and begins to wish that she had made sure her front door was closed before she started baking.

"This isn't gonna change what happened." Steve tells Tony, sparing a glance for the girl lying a few feet away.

"I don't care. He killed my mom." Tony snaps.

They trade punches and Tony ends up pinning Steve down. Bucky picks up the shield and leaps down to help. As the two super soldiers fist fight with Tony, the shield changing hands between them until Tony manages to zap Steve - who is thrown back into the wall.

Bucky struggles to hold Tony at bay as he unleashes an energy beam, then he forces him against the opposite wall and grips the glowing core in the chest of the Iron Man Suit with his metal hand.

Melissa sees Tony charge up the core beam and barely manages to control the blast from her place on the ground, stopping it from blowing Bucky's arm off. Instead, it throws him backwards and Tony zaps him again to knock him out. Steve rushes him with his shield up and Tony fires right at it.

" _You can't beat him hand to hand._ " Came FRIDAY's voice.   
"Analyse his fight pattern." Tony huffed back.   
" _Scanning_!"  
Iron Man's HUD flashes red as Steve lands blow after blow.  
" _Countermeasures ready._ "

Tony grabs Captain America's shield.  
"Let's kick his ass."

He flings the shield away then zaps Steve backwards, head over heels. Steve rises and Tony blocks his punches then zaps him to his knees, right in front of Bucky who's lying on his back.

"He's my friend." Steve pants.

"So was I." Tony says, his voice betraying more emotion than Steve had ever seen in him. Tony punches Steve then throws him back towards the gaps in the wall.   
"Stay down. Final warning."

Steve struggles to his feet, his face bloody and his gate weary. He raises his fists and stares Tony down.  
"I can do this all day."

Tony raises his left palm ready to fire. Bucky grabs his leg and Tony spins, kicking him in the face. Steve grabs Tony and lifts him over his head, then throws him down, punches him and bashes his mask off with his shield before striking down hard on the suit's core.

Tony looks horrified and glowers fearfully at Steve who pants for breath. Both have blood spattered across their faces. Steve looks back at Tony then shuts his eyes and slumps down.

The shield remains upright, stuck upright in the centre of the Iron Man Suit. When Steve struggles up again he takes hold of the shield, gripping the edge and pulling it free.

He steps away from Tony who rolls painfully onto his side. Bucky lies bloodied but conscious, Steve reaches out and pulls him to his feet, holding him up as Tony looks on.

"That shield doesn't belong to you. You don't deserve it." Tony shouts from behind him. "My father made that shield!"

Steve stops, raises his chin, then drops the shield and walks away with Bucky's arm around his shoulder. They don't get very far.

Melissa steps out of a portal right in front of the two. Her lip is split, her left eye is almost swollen over and there's a steady stream of blood pouring from her nose. She hunches slightly due to the burning pain of her surely broken ribs.

Bucky, even with half closed eyes, looks at her ashamed.

"I'm sorry." She whispers to the two. She reaches up, slamming her hands into their foreheads, and knocks them out.

They both fall to the ground as she goes to help Tony up. T'Challa enters, looking over the two passed out super soldiers.

"Take them to the Raft." Tony spits.

Melissa looks up at him wide eyed.   
"Tony..." she starts, but he snaps his head over to look at her.

"You really gonna start disagreeing with me _now_?" He shouts. "Look at what he did to you!"

Melissa flinches, taking two shaking steps away from him, but she knows his anger isn't directed at her. He's mourning his parents all over again.

"I shall take them." T'Challa nods, though Melissa notices that he seems to disagree with Tony's decision. "And the girl?"

"Go home, kid. I'll speak with you in a few days." Tony tells her quietly. He didn't mean to shout at her, and he certainly didn't like that she looked afraid of him, but he could apologise later.

Melissa nods, glancing down at the two super soldiers one last time before stepping through a portal to her Queens apartment.

_Well, that didn't go to plan._


	5. "Who wants to go on a field trip?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa makes a decision, schedules a jailbreak, and kicks some ass.

**|| "Who Wants To Go On A Field Trip?"**

It took Melissa all of half an hour in her apartment to decide that she couldn't leave Rogers, Barnes and the others to rot in the Raft - her position was only solidified when she remembered how Wanda was being _literally chained up_ in her cell. It took her all of five fucking seconds to decide she was going to be the one to break them out.

She didn't particularly want to go up against the whole goddamn government, but it seemed like that was the only way to help them. They shouldn't be in prison, so she was going to do whatever she had to do to get them out.

First, she needed to fix herself up. Healing magic wasn't exactly her forte, but at least she could ease her pain and bruising. She started with her cut lip, smoothing it over as much as she could, before moving to her black eye. It wasn't gone, but it was more green than blue now. Her broken nose healed with a sharp pain that echoed across her whole face - this is why she didn't get into fights.

Healing her ribs was by far the most difficult, and she let out more than a few screams when they snapped back into place, but at least she could breathe without the accompanying stabbing pain now.

She looked like shit, but that wasn't going to stop her.

She was glad Tony had taken her to the Raft with him because now that she'd seen the place, she knew that portaling in would be difficult. The whole place was guarded against heavy magic, so she needed to enter where she and Tony did at the helipad.

Thankfully, that was right across from Storage Cupboard 1, which just so happened to be where spare guard uniforms were kept. Melissa wasted no time in putting one on when she landed, finding an accompanying helmet that would cover her face.

It was surprisingly easy to infiltrate the security room, and even easier to make sure that their cameras would loop the one second of the tape that placed every occupant exactly where they should be, sitting on the floor silently in their cells.

Once that was done, Melissa walked quietly to the holding cells. She really hoped her plan worked.

**||**

The prisoners in the room watched as a new guard entered their holding room, the one that had been sitting down nodded at them and took his leave.

The new one sat down, clutching their gun tightly and sitting immaculately straight. They didn't say anything, which was strange. Since they had been imprisoned here, every guard had made a point to mention that Cap turning into a criminal would have been their last bet. It was apparently fun to taunt the super soldier now that he couldn't retaliate. 

Before Sam had a chance to call the guard out, Senator Ross made his way into the room.

"So nice of you to join us Captain, and you Sergeant." He spoke to the two newest additions to the prison. His voice was more than condescending and Sam could see Cap's fist clenching from his cell.

"Anything to say?" Ross asked, leaning closer the the glass of Barnes' cell. The man simply glared at him.

"Hmm." Ross scoffed. "We'll get you to talk eventually." He turned to the seated guard. "Have Barnes taken to the interrogation room. Use whatever means necessary, I want to know everything."

Once Ross turned away from the cells, the guard stood up from their position on the chair.

As soon as the doors shut behind him, the guard slumped - dropping the gun with a loud clatter. All the prisoners watched in confusion as the guard reached up and pulled off their helmet to reveal-

"Melissa?"   
It was Bucky who spoke, looking both surprised and relieved at the sight of her.

"Who?" Clint asked in confusion, looking between the girl and the super soldier.

"The Siren." Bucky explained. "From the airport."

Melissa let the helmet drop to the ground with a groan and began unzipping the rest of her uniform.   
"Gods, these things are stuffy." She mumbled.

"You're the kid Stark brought in?" Sam asked from the far corner.

"One of them." Melissa concedes, finally ridding herself of the dumb uniform.

"Then what are you doing _here_?" Clint asked from his own cell, leaning on the glass to get a good look at the kid. 

"Well, I got inside his head." She pointed at Bucky. "Just for a few moments, but it was enough. He doesn't deserve to rot in here, none of you do, so I've decided you won't."

She turned to face Bucky, a look of fake disappointment on her face.   
"What did I say about landing yourself in a cell?"

"My bad. But if I remember correctly, _you_ put us here." Bucky retorted, though he had a smile tugging at his lips.

" _My bad_." She replied with a smirk.

Bucky found her couldn't meet her eyes properly for long. All he could see was the mess he'd made of her face.

"How old are you, munchkin?" Sam mocked, earning a sharp glare from the girl.

"Nineteen, but I'm currently the one in charge so don't push me." Melissa sassed back. "Look, I'm just a girl trying to help out."

"Cool motive, but this is still a federal crime." Scott told her. (It was a bit hypocritical coming from him, but he was an adult. She was still technically a teenager.)

"You really going to tell me that from behind an inch of missile proof glass?" She sassed.

Scott barked out a laugh, holding up his hands in mock defeat. The girl had fire, he liked it.

Melissa looked around the prisoners. Sam, Clint, Steve, Bucky, Scott and Wanda. With a smile on her face, she raised her hand.

"Who wants to go on a field trip?" Melissa smiled, her bruised fingers holding up a stolen key card.

She unlocked the cell doors one by one, also moving in to release Wanda from her restraints. The girl in question gripped Melissa tightly, thanking her as quietly as she could manage.

"Just like that?" Steve asked, as they all exited their cells.

"Just like that." Melissa responded.

Bucky crosses his arms and looked her over.   
"Can I keep her, Steve?"

"No."

Melissa laughed at him. The group stood for a few more second, most people sending Melissa thankful looks, until Scott spoke up.

"So, are we just gonna stand here or what?"

Melissa's smile dropped and she turned to face him.   
"You ruined the moment, thanks."

**||**

The group of seven moved cautiously down the corridor, listening carefully. There was no guards around yet, but Melissa hadn't looped the security footage outside of the holding cells so they would be able to see them soon. She _had_ managed to destroy their backup saves and corrupt their files, meaning they wouldn't be able to see her face anywhere; little victories.

"Are we going to have to fight our way out of here?" Steve asked her, looking around a corner and signalling for them to move.

"No." Melissa replied quietly.

She heard Steve let out a sigh of relief.   
"Good."

"No, what I mean is _you're_ not." Melissa corrected. " _I_ am going to fight our way out of here, _you_ are not going to get yourself into anymore trouble. Sound good, grandpa?"

She punctuated her words with a gentle pat to his chest, earning more than a few amused chuckles from the group behind her.

"I'm keeping her." Bucky's voice whispered behind them.

"Shut up, Bucky." Steve snapped, reaching back to smack his arm.

As they rounded the next corner, a gun was pointed directly into Melissa's face. She grabbed the barrel, pointing it upwards as the guard pulled the trigger and shot a hole in the roof.

In a quick movement she bent his wrist back and took his gun, removing the clip before smacking the gun into the guards throat. Winded, he stepped back as she dropped down and swiped his legs from beneath him. As he fell, she grabbed his head and smashed it down as hard as she could.

She had rendered him unconscious in seven seconds flat.

Clint nodded appreciatively from behind.   
"You'd get along well with Nat."

"Nat as in Natasha Romanoff? The Black Widow?" Melissa asked, turning back to face him.

He nodded his agreement and Melissa frowns.   
"She called me a traitor."

"That sounds like her." Clint laughs.

"Guys, we can do the catch up thing later. Let's get out of here!" Scott groans from the back of the group.

Melissa nods her agreement, stepping over the unconscious guard and continuing down the corridor.

She takes them through a dizzying series of twists and turns, luckily encountering no more guards, but good luck was not to last.

The final corridor, a singular long hallway that ended at the double door exit, contained no less than eight fully armed guards - all poised and ready to shoot them.

Melissa pushes the group back around the corner, leaning her head round to see the guards formation.

"How many?" Steve asks.

"Eight, all armed." Melissa tells him, sneaking another glance. "Two hand guns each, six bullets a clip."

"Shit. What's your play?" Clint grumbles, looking at the girl with a hint of worry.

Melissa grinned at them.   
"If I can put the Fist of Hydra over there on his ass, I think some shitty federal agents will be a piece of cake."

Without waiting for their response, she rounded the corner.

The two in front started shooting immediately, emptying an entire clip each - a waste of ammo as Melissa dodged every bullet. She jumped up onto the first one, wrapping her legs around his neck in a chokehold.

The third agent tried to shoot her, but a quick jerk of her legs has the bullet hitting agent number one in the shoulder instead. She jumps down from him, quickly grabbing number two's head and slamming it onto the wall then doing the same to agent one.

She takes another quick couple of steps, snatches three's gun from his hands and turns him to use as a shield. The agents hesitate, not wanting to sit one of their own. She double kneecaps agent four, then shoots his shooting hand.

Agent five moves forwards, lowering his gun. Melissa pushes agent three into his arms then kicks both of them to the ground - their harshly colliding foreheads knock them both out.

Agent six tries to punch her, but she dodges and he punches the steel wall. The resounding crack of his bones is enough to satisfy her that he wasn't pulling any triggers soon. A quick kick to the throat has him choking on the ground too.

Agents seven and eight lift their guns to shoot her but she tucks and rolls, picking up two fallen guns. She aims at both of them.

"I'd put them down, boys." She smirks.

Their hesitation is enough time for her to jump up, kicking seven in between the legs and punching eight in the face. Eight is unconscious immediately, a swift knee to the face breaks sevens nose and knocks him out too.

Melissa huffs, moving her hair from her face and turns back to face the other end of the corridor. The team are watching her, facial expressions ranging from fear to awe. She tucks the guns into the waistband of her jeans.

"Yeah, I really took it easy on you in Germany." She laughs, waving them forwards and continuing through the double doors.

The group follows and Melissa magically locks the door shut after them. They had finally reached an area that wasn't guarded, an area she could portal them out of.

She turns to Bucky and Sam.   
"You've seen this one before." She quips, opening up a portal directly into her living room.

"Still weird." Sam mutters under his breath.

"Agreed." Bucky says, before frowning and turning to face her. "And you did not _put me on my ass_."

"Yes I did."

Melissa waits for a moment, but none of the freed prisoners move to go through.

"You guys want to wait for them to break through the door?" She asks, motioning to the portal. "Cause that locking spell is temporary."

Most still look hesitantly at the portal, but Bucky takes a deep breath and steps through. Seeing no danger, Steve follows his lead and soon the rest fall into line.

Melissa goes last, leaving a solitary messily written note for the agents to find when she closes the portal.

_"Gone on a field trip._   
_Be back never!_   
_\- Team Cap xo"_


	6. "I'm not sleeping on the couch."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has trust issues, and Wanda makes a friend.

**|| "I'm Not Sleeping On The Couch."**

Melissa closes the portal behind her and turns to face the group of superheroes. All are examining their surroundings, trying to get their bearings. Melissa's eyes settle on Wanda, who is swaying slightly where she stands.

Melissa quickly grabs the girls elbows and manoeuvres her to one of the armchairs in her living room. Wanda practically collapses into it and Melissa kneels down in front of her.

"Thank you." Wanda says, her entire body sagging in relief. Every bone in her body ached, her muscles strained after being held in an awkward position for too long.

Melissa smiles, reaching to take Wanda's hand into her own. She focuses for a brief second, and begins to pull some of the girls pain into her own body. Wanda watches with wide eyes as black veins appear on Melissa's exposed arm, though the girl didn't show any of the pain on her face.

"What are you doing?" Steve asks. His voice is harsh, but also confused.

"Taking some of her pain." Melissa tells them, before dropping Wanda's hand.

The Scarlett Witch's teary eyes meet her own, she doesn't have words to express her gratitude. Melissa stands up from her crouched position, and holds her hands out to the others.

"Anyone else need some healing?" She asks, suggestively raising her eyebrows.

Sam silently wonders how she can keep up her cheery persona, but decides to take her up on her offer. Tony's repulsor beam had hit him hard. Melissa takes the ache from his chest, and Sam breathes a little easier. Clint's cheeks flush as he moves closer to her.

"It's not really healing but..uh.." He stutters over his words. Melissa's kind smile soothes him, so he continues. "Your kick to the head, which was impressively strong by the way, kind of damaged my hearing aid."

Melissa blushes harshly, and awkwardly rubs her neck.   
"God, I'm so sorry. Which side?"

Clint gestures to his left ear so she lifts her hand up, lit with purple tendrils and quickly fixes the damage she caused. Clint gives her a thumbs up when he finally stops hearing the high pitched ringing that had been bothering him since the airport.

The rest of the group decline her help, allowing themselves to relax a little and settling themselves down onto her couches.

Clint shares the armchair with Wanda, pulling the girl in to his side for a one armed hug, Bucky and Steve take the big couch, while Scott and Sam settle onto the smaller couch.

Melissa smiles at them, then her eyes drift to Bucky. He catches her gaze immediately.

"We'll get to fixing your head later. But first, I'd quite like some food. Preferences?" She asks, glancing around the group.

Clint and Scott both shout (much louder than necessary) for pizza, Sam politely requests Chinese and Wanda says she isn't fussy. Steve and Bucky don't answer.

"What do you mean?" Steve asks her.

"Dinner. What do you want to eat?" Melissa asks again, but Steve shakes his head.

"No, about fixing Bucky?" He elaborates.

"Oh, right!" Melissa blushes. "Well, I figured you probably don't want to be mind controlled, right? Dumb question, of course you don't. I can take away those activation words and hopefully get some, if not all, of your memory back."

Bucky stares at her, confused.   
"You can do that?"

"Remember that room in your head that I took you to?" Melissa asks, waiting for him to nod. "That door that was chained shut? From there I can access your subconscious memory. Most people's are laid out like hallways with rooms spiralling off, unless you're like me and organise your memories. Difficult to learn how to do, even harder to keep up."

The group is hanging on to her every word, finding the conversation topic extremely interesting, if not a little terrifying. She could really wander through people's memories like that? Whenever she wanted?

"I can find the room that hosts Hydra's control over you and destroy its tether. Then I can try to get your memory back. It works differently for everyone, but I'm sure I can figure it out."

Bucky finds himself blinking back a few tears, though he'll never admit it. Steve was simply confused, he didn't understand why the girl was going through so much trouble for people she didn't know. It didn't sit well with him.

"That's amazing!" Clint exclaims. "Your power, that's more than useful - its revolutionary!"

"I volunteer at a nearby hospital, in the amnesia ward. I try my best to help the patients without being suspicious." Melissa shrugs, picking up her phone to make a quick call.

Melissa finds the groups eyes watching her rather uncomfortable, so she wanders behind the kitchen island. Clint has no qualms about turning to stare at her anyway. 

His eyes linger as she speaks quietly with whoever was on the other end, then with a sigh she slides into what he assumes is her bedroom. With a slight smile on his face, he turns to face the others.

"Anyone else think we should keep her?" He asks.

There was a murmur of agreement from most of the group, Wanda even enthusiastically nodding her head, but the two pensioners in the room remained suspiciously quiet.

"Cap? Barnes? Or Winter, whatever you want to be called? Instead of a puppy, how bout we get ourselves a teenage girl as a mascot?"

"She's bad news." Cap says, lowering his voice in case she could hear them.

Surprisingly, it was Sam who scoffed at him.   
"Really, Steve? You think the tiny, teenage girl that risked her life to break us out of federal prison and take away our pain is 'bad news' but you happily sit next to the guy who almost _caved your face in_ and _drowned you_ in the Potomac?"

Scott sucked a breath in through his teeth.  
"Ouch."

"That wasn't him, Sam. You know that." Steve retorted defensively.

"Kind of was." Bucky mumbled to himself. Steve wouldn't say he ignored him, he just chose not to acknowledge him.

Sam stood from his seat and pointed at the door Melissa had disappeared behind. It took quite a bit of restraint for the man not to raise his voice.   
"Well, this _was_ her. This was her helping us, not almost killing us. She saved Rhodes, who could have died because of me. She let you and Barnes leave instead of keeping you there, she broke us out of a _fucking prison_. Come on Steve, how can you have an issue with her?"

A year ago, Sam would never have dared raise his voice to Captain America. But this wasn't the hero he had read about growing up, this was his friend Steve - who was being a complete idiot.

"She's a _kid_ , Sam. They can be easily manipulated." Steve snaps at him, rising from his own seat to face Sam.

Bucky sinks even further down into the couch, absently wondering if it could just swallow him whole.

"So you think she doesn't know what she's doing?" Sam asks.

"Guys-" Scott tries to interrupt, but is hushed by Clint who looks like he's watching a very enjoyable tennis match.

"I'm saying she's under tony's influence." Steve counters. "Who's to say this isn't a trap set by him?"

Bucky finally speaks up but to everyone's surprise, it isn't in Steve's defence.   
"Actually, she spent most of the fight in Siberia trying to keep me away from Tony." He says, and goes to continue. Steve cuts him off.

"And then she knocked us out and got us sent to the _damn prison_ in the first place!" He shouts.

Bucky drops his head, sinking even lower into the couch.

"Steve-" Wanda warns him, concern bubbling in her chest for the brainwashed soldier.

"I don't trust that this isn't a set up." Steve tells them, squaring his shoulders.

"Good thing I wasn't asking for your trust, _Captain_."

The group turn to find Melissa leaning on kitchen island, using her magic to play with a couple of apples. Sam at least looks rather ashamed of his yelling, but only Bucky seems to notice the redness underneath the girls eyes. She had definitely heard them.

"Melissa-"

"That's Siren to you, Captain." She snaps, dropping the fruits back into their bowl. "Only friends get to call me Melissa. By all means, continue talking about me like you aren't currently guests in my home."

" _Unwilling_ guests." Steve bites back.

" _Steve_!" Clint, Sam and Wanda had shouted the mans name, but Bucky's disappointed stare almost had him backtracking.

Melissa gestured to her front door, even going so far as to unlock it with a twist of her fingers.   
"Feel free to head on out that door, Cap. I'm certainly not going to stop you. But I guarantee you don't make it three blocks before you're picked up. And I won't be breaking you out again."

Steve sighs, opening his mouth to argue, but Melissa doesn't give him the opportunity.

"No, I get it." She tells him, eyes boring holes into his head. "Anyone who sides with billionaire Tony Stark must automatically be on his payroll and bad news, I got that loud and clear." The sarcasm was teeming from her voice. "It didn't seem so black and white when it was Romanoff though."

That quip had Steve taking a step towards the girl. Immediately, Sam's had was gripping his arm and Clint had stood up from the armchair. He knew it was a warning, Sam was very pointedly telling him not to take another step.

"That's different." Steve bit out.

"Because I'm the new girl. Yeah, I get it. Except I'm offering to give you a place to lay low until the government gives up on finding you, _and_ the chance to get your best friend back - _after_ he broke my ribs, by the way." She finishes, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Sorry." Bucky mumbles from the couch.

Melissa faces him and softens, giving him a small smile.   
"Don't worry about it, they're mostly healed now. Magic has its uses."

She winks at the end, and sends some purple tendrils over to heal a cut on his lip. He touches the healed skin and smiles at her.

"You're a _kid_." Steve tells her, ignoring that his best friend looked to be the most comfortable with the young girl - even more than he was with him.

"No, I'm not." She shouts back. "I haven't been a kid in a long time. I'm doing you a _favour_ , try showing me a little due courtesy. I wont even bother asking for respect, I'm guessing that has to be _earned_."

Sam raises his hands.   
"You have mine, if that counts for anything."

"It does, Sam, thanks." Melissa grins. "Just for that, you get to choose which bed you want."

"Ugh, kiss ass." Clint groans, swiping at Sam's leg.

"What?" Sam questions, confused.

"You didn't think you were all crashing in my living room, did you?" Melissa asks them, incredulously. She gestures to the room she had hidden in earlier. "You're through there. I've left as much men's clothes as I have available, fight it out between you. Wanda, I figured you could bunk with me. If that's okay?"

Some of the younger girls timid nature had slipped back, worried the older girl wouldn't agree with what she had basically decided for her.

"That's perfect, thank you." Wanda smiled at her.

Melissa holds a hand out to the girl, and nods to their room.

"Cmon, let get you into something comfortable."

The two disappear, closing the door behind them. The guys go into the second bedroom to find two bunk beds and a long couch. The bunk closest to the door had the clothes laid out in it.

The room was rather cramped, especially with the size of the men, but they could make it work.

"I'm not sleeping on the couch." Clint says immediately.

"Dude, we're lucky to have anywhere to sleep. Pick a bunk and shut up." Sam says, grabbing the closest pair of sweatpants and a green T-shirt.

"Are you mad at me, Sam?" Steve asks, grabbing clothes for himself and passing some to Bucky.

"You know what, yeah I am." Sam tells him, pulling himself onto the top left bunk. Clint threw himself on the bunk below him.

"I'm sorry." Steve says quietly.

"Good for you." Sam snapped back.

Bucky climbed onto the top right bunk, Steve sitting underneath him. Scott resigned himself to the fact that he was the smallest, he was sleeping on the damn couch. He'd slept in prison, surely it couldn't be worse than that.

"Sam-" Steve tries to continue the conversation, but the other man wasn't having it.

"Shut up, Steve." His voice had none of the usual joking tone. He was really pissed off at Steve.

"You've done it now, punk." Bucky mumbled down to his oldest friend.

"You can shut up as well, Barnes." Sam says, but his voice is lighter.

"You can _all_ shut up, I want to nap." Clint says, throwing his arm across his face.

"Wait, when did you change?" Scott asks, confused. Indeed, the man had swapped his uniform for an ill fitting pair of pyjama pants and a shirt that practically swallowed him.

Sam scoffs, looking down at the other man.   
"Barton, it's the middle of the day."

"Wanna ask me how many fucks I give?"


	7. "You're dying."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets the help he deserves, but it's doesn't go how he imagines.

**|| "I owe you, so much."**

As it turned out, Clint had the right idea about napping. Within ten minutes of being shown their room, the guys were all changed and passed out on their respective beds. Scott found that the couch was actually rather comfortable, marginally better than his prison bunk.

Melissa and Wanda chose not to sleep, instead spending time getting to know each other and to play around with their magic. It was interesting for both to see the differences between their powers, but their similarities as well. They did, however, take a photo of the guys - just in case they needed blackmail material in the future.

Wanda took to Melissa immediately. She loved her, it was that simple.

Melissa had done everything in her power to make sure that Wanda was comfortable with her, even offering to let the girl into her head. Wanda turned her down, but the offer alone was enough to cement Wanda's trust in her. No one, not even the Avenger's that she lived with, had ever been so kind to her.

Wanda would beat it into Steve if she had to; Melissa was a good person.

After three hours, Melissa decided the superheroes had slept long enough. Ever the courteous host, she woke them with the smell of a hearty home cooked meal. Wanda offered her help but was shut down very quickly, and pretty much ordered to take a ten minute nap.

Sam was the first to exit the room, the neon green t-shirt he wore looking was more like a dress on him. He sniffed the air, and stumbled towards the breakfast bar stools.

"I knew I could smell food." He grumbled, patiently waiting for Melissa to plate him some of her heavenly smelling macaroni and cheese.

Some people would say her choice was basic, and Melissa would tell them that they had clearly never experimented with more types of cheese than what comes in a flavour packet. 

Sam groaned into his first bite, scooping up a heaping pile and shoving it down his throat. Melissa smiled as he did. She had always loved cooking, so seeing anyone enjoy her food was enough to put her in a good mood.  
  
Clint and Scott stumbled out of the room next, both picking up their own bowls and digging in. Melissa noticed that Clint had taken out his hearing aids, but he gave her a thumbs up from his armchair - she assumed that meant he liked it. Scott tried to say something from next to Sam, but it was muffled by the sheer amount of food he had shoved in his mouth.

Bucky came out of the room next, shyly moving to take the bowl from Melissa's outstretched hand. He thanked her quietly, moving to sit next to Clint. 

Melissa watched with more than a little mirth as one of the last bowls lit up red and floated back to her room. Wanda was apparently not ready to leave the bed yet.

Steve was the last one to join them. He took a seat next to Sam and started eating, barely looking up from the counter. Sam dug his elbow sharply into Steve's side and gave him a pointed glare, nodding his head at Melissa.

"Thank you." Steve told her, his voice no more than a whisper in the otherwise silent apartment. Melissa decided that was good enough for now, nodding her head and moving to sit on the couch next to Bucky.

She was the last to finish her food, choosing to enjoy it instead of inhaling it. Wanda had emerged from the room while she was eating, sitting cross legged on the floor in front of Melissa while leaning her head back on the younger girls legs. Scott collected everyone's bowls, setting to work on cleaning the dishes. Melissa tried to protest, but he was adamant that they all owed her - they could clean their own dishes.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, Melissa running her fingers through Wanda's hair. Clint was amused at how quickly the two girls were drawn to each other, but wasn't entirely surprised given their similar age and shared abilities. 

Finally, Melissa decided it was time to get to work. 

"Are you sure you can do this?" Bucky asked her. She had positioned him on the couch and stood behind him, her hands coming to rest on his temples. 

"Are you doubting my skills?" She replies with a smirk. She was trying to be funny, hoping to lighten the mood and put him at ease. She hadn't exactly practised something like this before, but she knew what she was doing.

"No, of course not." He answers quickly, hoping he hadn't offended her. A look up at her face told him that she was only teasing, so he relaxed. 

"Then get comfy." She says, then turns to the rest of the group. "Sam and Clint, can I have you on either side of me? It's very possible that I might pass out once I'm done and I'd rather not get another concussion. Two in the space of twelve hours is a bit too risky, even for me."

Neither protested, moving to stand slightly behind her - Sam on her right, Clint on her left. 

"Steve, sit on the table in front of Bucky. If he starts moving, hold him still." She says it firmly, leaving no room for arguing on the blonds part. "Scott, can you sit on Bucky's left please? If he moves, and this is really important, do not let my hands leave his head."

Scott nods in confirmation, taking his place on beside him with a grim determination. He didn't know why that was important - he wasn't even going to pretend to understand what was going on - but if it was serious enough for her to highlight it like that, he certainly wasn't going to fuck up the job he was given.

"Wanda. Do you think you could monitor both me and Bucky's vitals? Focus on him though, check mine as more of an afterthought." The older girl nods, her red energy swirling around her hands. Bucky moved to protest the 'afterthought' comment, but Melissa shushed him.

"Everyone ready?" She asks. The group nods, looking serious. Even Steve seems keen to follow her instructions to the letter, though she shouldn't really be surprised by that - this was for his best friend after all. 

"Bucky?" She asks him, leaning over his shoulder to look at his face. 

Bucky looks around the group, all ready and willing to help him, and then back at Melissa. He gives as much of a smile as he can muster and nods. Melissa smiles back and reaches up, clasping her hands over either side of his forehead. Completely in sync, they both close their eyes and go still. 

After a few seconds of silence, Clint looks at the others.   
"What now?" He asks. 

The rest of the group don't take their eyes of the silent pair, Wanda silently monitoring them both as asked and Steve not wanting to risk looking away, until Sam meets Clint's gaze.  
"We do as she asked, and we hope that this works."

**||**

Bucky and Melissa open their eyes, back in the white room. Bucky is not in his dress greens this time. Instead, he seems to be in a pair of dark jeans and a forest green Henley. Melissa is in the same blue jeans and loose white shirt as before, though her hair is tied back in a ponytail. Together, they walk over to the double doors on the left hand side of the room - the ones that were chained shut.

"They supposed to be like that?" Bucky asks.

Melissa leans forwards, taking the thick heavy padlock in her hand.   
"No." She says softly. "This is part of Hydra's brainwashing, it's one of the reasons you can't access your memories. Some have slipped through, see here?" She points to a crack at the bottom of the door that Bucky otherwise would not have noticed.  
"I'm betting the ones that you've regained are tied to strong emotional connections, right?"

She looks up at him, and he nods.   
"Yeah. Some memories of Steve, my family, and the ones of Siberia."

"Love, loss and trauma. They've pushed through, but it's not enough to open the doors." Melissa says quietly. They stand in silence for a second, and then Melissa moves. 

She wraps two hands around the padlock, lighting it up purple and giving a sharp tug. It snaps clean off, the chains falling to the ground. Bucky winces, his hand moving up to clutch the side of his head. Melissa looks over at him, frowning.

"Did that hurt?" She asks him. He nods, causing her to grimace. 

"Then you're really not gonna like this." She says. "Take a deep breath."

He barely has a chance to do so before she lifts up her leg and kicks the doors open, splintering the many locks on the other side. Bucky doubles over for a few seconds, crying out softly in pain. Melissa moves to his side, gently massaging his temples. 

"I'm sorry, it'll feel better soon."

( _Back in the_ _apartment, Wanda manages to give them only a seconds warning as Bucky's vitals spike, before his body suddenly lurches forwards. Steve pushes his shoulders back, holding him firmly in place, and Scott tightly clasps his hands over Melissa's. Clint and Sam both step forwards, hand outstretched in case they need to grab the teen girl. After a few seconds Bucky goes still again, so Scott and Steve both hesitantly let go. Sam and Clint step back into their positions."Normalising." Wanda tells them._ )

Bucky takes a second to compose himself, standing back up. Exactly as Melissa had said, they're in a long white corridor with hundreds of doors on either side - mostly single doors, but a few sets of double doors. They begin to walk forwards.

"What are these?" Bucky asks, looking at the closed doors.

"They're your memories." Melissa says, then points to a plaque above the first set of double doors that are visibly cracked open. It says Steve. "This is all your memories of Steve."

Bucky so badly wants to go in, to see the memories that Steve wishes he had, but they keep moving forwards. He glances at the plaques, taking note of them as he passes. _Mom, school, Sarah, the Brooklyn apartment_.

"Why are some double?" He asks suddenly, making Melissa look over to him with a smile.

"Well done, I don't think many people would have noticed that. The more memories you have of something, the more room you need. The double doors are the rooms that have the most memories in them." She explains.

Bucky nods in understanding. They keep walking. Bucky isn't sure what they're looking for, but he assumes that Melissa would have told him if she'd seen it. The big doors they entered from are becoming specs behind them.

"So, is it because the doors are closed that I can't remember anything? Like the padlocked one?" Bucky asks. Melissa shakes her head and points at something he hadn't noticed.

"No, it's cause the lights are off." She tells him. "If the lights are on, then even if the doors are closed you can still remember things. Like, when you try to think about something that happened in the past, a family vacation for example. It's like searching on a computer, or looking for a specific book in a library. Your brain searches through the rooms for what you're looking for, and lets you access it again. Even your subconscious can't find something in the dark."

Weirdly, Bucky finds that her explanation makes complete sense to him. 

"There it is." Melissa says softly, lifting her hand to point at a door along the corridor - it's black.

They speed up their walk, coming to a stop in front of the dark impeding door. The plaque doesn't say Hydra, or even Winter Soldier like he'd expected. It's a simple red star, just like the one on his arm.

"I need to know that you fully understand something before I go in." Melissa says to him, taking her eyes off the door to face him.

"What?" Bucky asks. He wants to reach out and touch the door, to push it open and see the parts of himself that had been wiped clean. He wanted to finally know everything Hydra had made him do, but he focused on Melissa.

She took a deep breath to steady herself.  
"If there's someone in that room, anyone from Hydra, from your past - you can't come in. You need to stay in the hallway, no matter what." She says, her voice uncharacteristically serious. That certainly got his attention.

He turned to face her, confusion on his face.  
"What? Why?" He asked. 

She paused for a second, unsure how to explain it without worrying him.  
"Because all magic comes with a price." She says. "If something happens in that room, and I'm physically hurt, it will happen to my body in real time. It's different for you, we're in _your_ head. It will cause more damage to your brain, things I can't heal."

Bucky frowns, only really hearing the part about being 'physically hurt'.  
"I'm not-" He cuts himself off, not sure how to respond. "You can't get hurt for me, I'm not worth it."

"This is the best way to help you, I'll do whatever I have to do." Melissa tells him firmly. 

"No, Melissa, I don't _want_ you to get hurt." He explains, worry for the girl pooling in his gut.

Melissa reaches forwards and pulls him into a hug, trying to exude as much confidence in herself as possible. She pulls back and looks into his eyes.

"Don't come in. Okay?" She says softly. "I'll be fine, I promise. Let me do this for you."

Bucky can't remember the last time he trusted someone, both because he didn't have his memories and also because he wasn't sure if he ever had. Sure, he trusted Steve with his life, but he couldn't always trust Steve to take care of himself.

Right now, he knew he could one hundred percent trust.

"Okay." He replies. "But you better keep that promise."

Melissa nods and pulls away from him, taking a deep breath to steel herself before pushing open the door.

The inside looks like a dark concrete room, the far wall lined with filling cabinets that Melissa figured would hold Bucky's memories of Hydra. There was a surgical chair in the middle of the room, the one that Melissa knew was for wiping his memories. In the far right corner was the yellow cryostasis tube, and on the left hand side was a cluttered looking desk. 

It was every bit as creepy as Melissa figured it would be. 

She went to work, moving over to touch both the cryo tube and the chair. When she found the tether, she should feel something stir in her magic - a kind magical sensor. She didn't feel it with either object so she moved over to the table. 

Before she could pick up anything from it, she felt something move from behind her. She ducked just in time, a metal fist crumbling the concrete wall where her head had just been.

"Melissa!" Bucky shouted from the doorway, panic in his tone. She stood up and turned to face the Winter Soldier in all his masked glory.

This wasn't the same man she had fought with in the airport, this was the fully brainwashed assassin she had seen in Bucky's memories. This wasn't Bucky, she said to herself, it couldn't be.

He aimed another punch which she ducked under, spinning round him and aiming a kick the back of his knees. He toppled slightly before righting himself, pulling a gun out of his thigh holster. Melissa jumped behind the cryo tube, flinching when three bullets hit the metal in rapid succession.

She moved out from behind it, swiftly kicking the gun from his hand and aiming an elbow at his nose. It threw his head back, leaving her enough room to grab him by the neck. He managed to land a punch on her jaw with the metal hand before she gained enough leverage to crack his head off the concrete. He dropped to the ground, seemingly unconscious.

( _In the apartment, Wanda briefly felt something from Melissa. She told Sam and Clint, who readied themselves just in time to catch her as her head was thrown to the side. Her hands nearly slipped as her body toppled, but Scott had been ready to do his part. They stood her upright again, and everyone could clearly see the bruise now rapidly forming on her jaw. "What the fuck?" Clint said quietly, speaking for all of them_.)

She reached up to cradle her jaw, feeling the steady ache beginning to set in. Just to be sure, she gently nudged him with her toe. He didn't move.

"Are you okay?" Bucky asked from the doorway. 

Melissa looked up to meet his eyes. She could feel his worry from here, even without her powers. She tried to give him a comforting smile.  
"Told you I could put you on your ass." She said, moving away to keep searching the room.

She barely heard him scoff, moving much quicker in her search now. She rifled through the desk, knocking some loose items down in her haste.

"Try the book." Bucky called to her, pointing towards the Winter Soldier programming manual. She picked it up, but didn't feel anything from it. She growled to herself, throwing the book clean across the room. 

"It doesn't make sense!" She shouted, moving over to the filing cabinets. "There should be something here that serves as a connection between you and the room, but nothing feels- oh."

Bucky frowned as she abruptly ended her sentence and stopped moving.

"What?" He asked. "What is it?"

"It's him." She said to herself, her voice no more than a whisper. She whipped around and looked over to where she had left the soldier - where he no longer was.

"It's him!" She repeated, her voice louder and more panicked. She moved to run back out the door, but didn't make it. 

The cool metal of the soldiers hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her backwards, throwing her face first into the cryo tube. She bounced off of it and onto the floor, her head hitting the concrete with a resounding thump.

She quickly rolled onto her front and tried to crawl towards the door, towards where Bucky was screaming her name in panic. The soldier grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her backwards, causing her to let out a sharp scream. 

( _Sam and Clint are now holding Melissa upright, her head sagging against them as blood trickles down her forehead. Scott kept his grip on her hands, not trusting that they weren't going to slip off. Bucky's heart rate was worryingly high, and his breathing was coming in short pants. Wanda lets the others know, though they are now focused on Melissa._ )

The soldier forces her onto her back and climbs on top of her, pinning her down. He pulls out a knife and aims it at her throat. She barely manages to grab his hand, pushing with all her might against him. The knife still presses against the soft skin of her throat, splitting it as he pushes harder. 

( _Steve watches the line of blood appear on her throat, both himself and Wanda calling out in surprise. Wanda grabs a dishtowel from the kitchen and stands beside Sam to put pressure on it. "What the fuck is going on?" Sam shouts. The group begin to panic._ )

Melissa tilts her head up and bites down on the soldiers flesh hand, momentarily causing him to pull the knife away. She uses the time to her advantage, knocking both his hands away and swinging a right hook at his temple.

She scrambles to her feet, watching as he does the same. He's now positioned between her and the door, where Bucky seems to be having some form of panic attack. He said he wouldn't go into the room, but right now he wants to do nothing more than get her out of there.

The soldier makes the first move, stepping quickly towards her. He swings at her with the knife, barely scratching her shoulder as she leans back. She kicks the side of his knee, hearing the crunch of bone that she wanted to hear. It doesn't stop him from grabbing her as she tries to rub past and turning, her back now at his chest and his metal arm around her throat in a choke hold. 

Melissa's eyes meet Bucky's, her feet kicking against the concrete trying to find purchase, as the soldier begins to tighten his grip. Her breath cuts off abruptly, arms flying up to try and pull his arm away.

( _Wanda shouts in panic as Melissa stops breathing, a deep red bruising colouring her throat. Scott has to firmly hold her hands in place as she begins to struggle against him and the two holding her upright._ ) 

Bucky can do nothing except shout her name in panic, watching as she struggles in his alter ego's grasp. She manages to pull his arm away slightly, enough to take in a quick gasp of air and pant out two words. 

"желание, проржавевший-" 

Both Bucky and the soldier take a faltering step backwards at the activation words. The soldier still has the capacity to bring down his flesh hand. Melissa screams in pain, the knife he was holding now lodged between her ribs.

Melissa throws his hands off and stumbles away while he's gathering himself, making it to the door where she collapses into Bucky's waiting arms. She coughs and stutters, still trying to bring air into her deprived lungs.

(S _am swears loudly as Melissa begins to profusely bleed from a chest wound, angling himself so that Wanda can move in to put pressure on it - abandoning the cut on her neck for the obviously more detrimental wound. The group are now fully panicking, and they have no idea what to do_. _"How do we bring her out of it?" Scott asks. Clint is the one to respond. "She didn't fucking tell us!" Wanda has to stifle a fearful sob in her chest, focused on making sure her new friend doesn't bleed out._ )

Bucky pulls Melissa backwards, away from the door, and lowers her to the ground. The girl is groaning in pain, her hand resting on the handle of the knife still embedded in her chest. She pulls it out, and drops it onto the ground.

"Melissa, come on." He says, trying to get his breathing under control. "We have to get out of here."

"No." She says, coughing. Bucky doesn't think he can panic any more than he already is, but the wetness of her cough - a sounds that he associates with internal bleeding - almost pushes him further.

"You're dying." He pleads with her, watching as her skin begins to pale.

Melissa lights her hands up purple, healing the puncture in her lung as much as she can before rolling onto her side and facing into the room - facing the soldier.

"I have to kill him."

( _"Just hold her up! And don't let her hands move!" Steve tells Clint and Scott, leaning to push Bucky down as he starts to move again._ )

"Are you crazy?" Bucky asks her, his tone incredulous. "We have to get out of here before you bleed to death."

Melissa steels herself, pushing herself to her feet and picking up the fallen knife. She gives herself a quick adrenaline boost with as much magic as she's willing to dose herself with, and pulls herself out of Bucky's arms. 

He calls out to her, but shes already breaking into a sprint across the threshold of the room. She drops down into a slide in front of the soldier, stabbing the knife behind the back of his unbroken kneecap. He gets in a hit on the side of her head as he topples, which she gently shakes off. 

He goes sprawling on the ground, his legs now unable to take the weight of his sheer body mass. Melissa quickly steps up behind him, grabbing him by the hair and pulling the top half of his body upright. 

She wraps her arm around his neck and places the other hand against the side of his head, moving her own head so that she dodges his flailing arms. She looks up to meet Bucky's eyes, seeing nothing but fear - whether for him or what he's about to see, she doesn't know. 

With a sharp twist, and a sickening crack, she snaps his neck. His arms drop, his entire body going still, and he slips from her grasp and drops back onto the concrete.

She blinks a few times, her now vision beginning to blur, but she can feel that the connection has been severed. She lifts her hands, destroying the rest of the room in a flare of purple but leaves the memory cabinets intact. She stumbles back out of the room, Bucky's arm slipping around her waist as she leans heavily against his side. 

She musters the very last of her power, letting it blast from her chest with a sharp cry. All the light switches in the corridor begin to flick on one by one. Bucky leads them back down the corridor as quickly as he can, though it seems to take much longer this time around.

The finally make it back to the splintered double doors, and Melissa has gone very slack in Bucky's arms. She uses the last of her magical adrenaline boost to reach up with a bloody, shaking hand and touch her fingers to his forehead. 

Their vision goes black.


	8. "I owe you, so much."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa owes five very worried people an explanation.

**|| "I owe you, so much."**

Bucky's eyes snap open and he throws himself forwards out of Melissa's grasp, his hands going up to hold his head tightly. His head burns, the pain more powerful than any migraine ever could. He slams his eyes shut again, groaning in pain.

Melissa's body finally goes completely slack, her eyes rolling back into her head and her hands arms falling to her sides. Clint and Sam lower her to the ground, Wanda still pressing on her chest wound. 

Scott quickly vaults the couch, kneeling down beside them, and checks her over.   
"She's still breathing." He says for Steve, who's trying to stop Bucky from clawing at his own face. 

Bucky starts to settle, the pain settling to a dull throb at the base. He opens his eyes, and meets a pair of blue ones. A very familiar pair of blue ones. 

"Steve?" He asks, confused. Then his eyes widen, as everything finally clicks back into place. "Steve. Oh my god, _Stevie_!" The man launches himself at the blonde, pulling him in for a bone crushing hug. 

Steve hold him just as tight for a few seconds before pulling away to look at him. Bucky's eyes look less haunted than they did before he went under, he knows that this is his Bucky - the one who remembers him.  
" _God_ , Buck. I promise we'll catch up in a second." Steve's voice is thick with emotion, like he wanted to drop everything for him. "But we have to help Melissa first."

Bucky's panic surges, turning to where the others are crowding around the fallen teenager. He rushed to her side, watching as they check over her wounds.

"What the fuck happened in there?" Clint asks, wincing at the bruising on Melissa's forehead as he wiped away the blood with the cloth he had grabbed from the bathroom.

Both her forehead and neck had stopped bleeding rather quickly, but her chest wound was still going. Her breathing had finally evened out, though it did seem a little strained to him - like it hurt to take a breath.

"It was me- I mean, not me. The soldier version of me. He was the tether to the activation words." Bucky says, though he doesn't think his explanation makes sense. "Melissa had to kill him to break the connection, he almost killed her first."

"Melissa managed to kill him?" Steve asks, his voice somewhere between confused and disbelieving.

"She snapped his neck." Bucky told them with a nod, his eyes not leaving Melissa. "After he almost choked her to death and stabbed her."

"That'll be why she stopped breathing then." Sam comments drily, checking over the bruises on her arms that were very clearly metal hand prints.

"Why didn't she warn us this would happen?" Steve asks, not really expecting an answer. 

"She didn't expect the tether to be a living thing, she was surprised when she realised it was him - and she only did when he showed up and attacked her." Bucky says in her defence. "She warned me about the consequences of her being hurt in there right before she went in, when she was warning me not to try to help."

"Is she going to be okay?" Wanda asks, still holding down on her dishtowel that was not almost soaked with blood.

"I don't think the knife got her lung, we'd hear that." Clint tells them, moving Wanda's hands and lifting her shirt to survey the wound.

"It did." Bucky tells them, causing them to look up at him in alarm. "She healed herself while we were in there. She hit her head though, didn't she say she had already had a concussion?"

Sam angles his body so that the light shines down on her face, opening one of her eyes.  
"Oh yeah, shes definitely concussed." He says with a grimace. "She might be out for a while. Clint, how's that wound looking?"

"The bleeding is slowing, but not by much." He tells them, his hands now stained with blood. "We're gonna have to stitch it up to get it to stop. Someone find me some thread and I can do it."

Steve quickly moved around the group and rummaged through the kitchen, finding a first aid kit in the corner under the sink. He pulled out the surgical thread and needle, pouring some vodka form the bottle on the counter over the needle to sterilise it.

He hands it over to Clint, who tasks Wanda with mopping up the blood so that he can see what he's doing. He makes quick work of stitching the wound, Melissa grimacing in pain as he did but not waking up.

Once he's done, the wound doesn't seem to be visibly bleeding. The group lets out a collective sigh of relief.

"Now what?" Scott asks.

"We wait for her to wake up." Clint tells him, getting up to wash the blood off his hands - Wanda moving to do so as well.

"Steve," Sam calls, rising to his feet with Melissa in his arms. "Grab a towel and set it down over the couch."

Steve moves to do as he's told, laying it flat so that Sam can put the girl down on it. He figured that even injured, she might take issue with them accidental staining her couch with blood.

Bucky follows after them, sitting on the armchair beside Melissa's head.   
"I told her we had to leave." He says quietly. "She wouldn't stop, not until she killed him."

Sam moved to clasp him on the shoulder.  
"She wanted to help you, man. And I'm assuming she did?"

Bucky smiled lightly.   
"Yeah, she did. And I'm sorry, by the way, about your car. And your wings."

Sam lets out a bark of a laugh and waves him off.  
"Steve bought me a new car, and then Stark actually improved the design of my wings. So, maybe I should actually be thanking you." Sam finished by stretching out his hand for Bucky to shake.

Bucky grinned, taking it.

All that was left to do was wait for her to wake up.

**||**

It was the longest two hours of Bucky's life. Or at least, it felt like it. Even with Wanda continually monitoring Melissa, he was worried that something would go wrong. 

When she finally opened her eyes, she immediately closed them again with a groan as the light seemed to burn them. Wanda turned off the living room light with a quick flash of red, moving to kneel beside Melissa's head. 

"That soldier guy is a jerk." Melissa groaned, a lazy smile spreading across her face.

Due to the pure relief of her being okay, they all laughed at her stupid joke. She cracked her eyes open again, glancing around at them all. Sam, Scott and Clint were standing behind the back of the couch, while Steve had perched on the armchair beside Bucky.

Melissa tilted her head back to look at Bucky.  
"How'd I do?" She asked.

Bucky smiled down at her, finally allowing himself to relax.  
"I'm definitely teaching you how to get a knife out of an attackers hand."

"In my defence, I did eventually get it." She replied, moving to sit upright with Wanda's help.

"Yeah. taking it from him and pulling it out of your own chest after being stabbed are two very different things." Bucky told her. 

"Ugh, technicalities." She groaned, rolling her eyes.

The group laughed at her again, watching as she moved her stiff limbs.

"Watch you don't pull your stitches." Clint told her, pointing to her stab wound. "Had to sew you shut to stop the bleeding."

"Awesome." She gave him a thumbs, with obvious sarcasm.

"You had us really worried, kid." Sam said, a chastising tone in his voice. "You stopped breathing."

"Trust me, I know." Melissa grimaced, reaching up to gently touch her very bruised neck.

"Speaking of which," Steve piped up, looking over at her. "How did you get him off of you?"

Bucky winced, dropping his head at the reminder.

"I had to use the code words." She told him. "Only the first two, just enough to shock him into loosening his grip so I could get a hit in."

"That's when he stabbed you." Bucky points out.

"Yeah, not my most well executed plan." Melissa grins, shrugging her shoulders.

"You don't say." Scott says, mirroring her earlier sarcastic thumbs up.

"Hey, all is well that ends well." Melissa tells them. "I see this as an absolute win."

"Well, our dearest winner, you are now on bed rest." Sam says, clapping her gently on the shoulder.

"No!" She whines, sounding more like a toddler than an almost-adult.

"Yes." Clint tells her, sounding every bit the father figure. "Wanda can help you shower if you need help and then you're getting in that damn bed."

Melissa pretends to think it over, dramatically lifting a hand to stoke her nonexistent beard.  
"If I concede will you bring me a bowl of ice cream for my troubles?"

"Yes" Clint agrees, smiling down at her.

"Fine." She tells him, the looks over at Bucky. "But first, we need to be sure."

"Yeah, we do." Bucky nods his head.

Steve is the first to catch on, snapping his head over to Melissa with wide eyes. For the first time in three hours, Steve remembers that he doesn't trust her.  
"Are you crazy?" He asks.

The others finally realise what they mean, and agree with Melissa that it might be better to check now rather than find out later the hard way,

"Steve, the tether is gone. I snapped its neck - _his neck_ \- with my bare hands." Melissa tells him, her voice sharp. "But we need to be sure."

"No. This is-" Sam cuts Steve off with a glare.

"You want another random terrorist to be the one to check if they work?" He asks, raising his eyebrows.

Steve wants to argue, but after taking a quick look around can see that he's outnumbered.

Bucky stands up, moving away from the group just in case something had gone wrong. He nods at Melissa, telling her he's ready, and braces himself.

"Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь." Bucky slams his eyes shut, his entire body shaking. "Девять. Добросердечный." His finger nails are cutting small semi circles into his flesh palm, his metal gears clicking in the other arm. "Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон."

They wait with bated breath, watching the man who still had his eyes tightly closed, until he started hysterically laughing.  
"Oh my god, _it worked_."  
He drops his head in his hands, his body shaking with laughter.

Steve steps forwards and pulls Bucky into a hug, the others smiling and leaving them to it. And if anyone notices that Bucky's laughs begin to sound suspiciously like sobs, no one mentions it.

**||**

After her shower, which Wanda did end up having to help with, Melissa sat in bed with a tub of mint choc chip ice cream and let herself rest. She hadn't stopped since Tony picked her up - yesterday? Two days ago? God, she didn't even know.

She needed some time to wrap her head around all that had happened. And she also needed to figure out a plan. She was now technically harbouring six fugitives in her shitty Queens apartment. What if Peter climbed in her bedroom window (they used the fire escape that connected their rooms to visit each other late at night sometimes) and saw Wanda? Surely he'd recognise her from the airport.

God, since when was her life such a mess?

Her deep thinking was interrupted by a soft knock on her bedroom door. Melissa called in a phony deep voice for them to enter, eliciting a chuckle from Bucky.

He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, looking a little conflicted. 

"What's up, buttercup?" Melissa asks, eating another spoonful of ice cream.

Bucky hesitates, struggling to choose his words correctly.  
"I owe you, so much." Bucky tells her, his voice quiet. "I don't know how I could ever repay you."

Melissa knew they were going to have a long some day about what had happened, and about the other things she had seen in his mind. But there was a lot to unpack there, and tonight wasn't the night to get into it.

"How bout by helping me stand? I don't wanna spill pasta sauce on my bed covers." Melissa says with a pout. He sighed at her evasion but nodded, standing up and offering his arm.

Just as Melissa was steadying on her feet, Clint walked in.

"Hey, uhm, quick question. Have you ever wanted to eat spaghetti out of a cup with a spoon?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

Melissa stared at him for a solid ten seconds, then grinned.  
"You didn't do the dishes, did you?" She asked.

"No, I most certainly did not."

(And if they ate spaghetti out of cups, using their fingers because the spoons were useless, and loved every second of it? Well, that was their business.)


	9. "I should have left you all in that fucking prison."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes, and yet the heroes don't want to leave.

**|| "I should have left you all in that fucking prison."**

**Day Two**  
Arguably, the second day was much quieter than the chaotic first day in the 'Team Cap Clubhouse', as Melissa had now dubbed her apartment. Of course they had set the bar rather high with a voodoo lobotomy and a punctured lung within the first three hours of day one, so the only way to go from here was up. Hopefully. (Clint had tried to say 'challenge accepted' when this was brought up, but Wanda poured a cup of freezing cold water on him so he stayed quiet.)

Melissa was waited on hand and foot, particularly by Bucky. He was very much feeling indebted to the teen which didn't sit very well with her, but there didn't seem to be much she could do about it. He made sure she had everything she needed, barely leaving her side the whole day. Wanda, of course, found this hilarious.

The older girl had to physically force Bucky out of the room when the two girls wanted to have a nap, but that hadn't stopped him from poking his head in to make sure Melissa hadn't ripped her stitches in her sleep. (She hadn't, because she had healed the stab wound early that morning. The thread was annoying her. But no one else needed to know that yet.)

Her magic was very severely depleted, and she knew it was going to take a while to build back up - especially if she kept using what little she had to heal herself. She had never pushed herself that much before, and she had certainly never used that much magic in such a short time frame.

She did, however, know that she was going to get very sick soon - a side effect of using magic as an adrenaline boost. It was kind of like getting an infection, her body was going to try to flush it out of her system. And it had no qualms about being violent. So, I guess that was something to look forward to.

**Day Four**  
Her 'magical flu' hit her all at once and out of nowhere. One minute she was rinsing her hair under the steady shower stream and the next, Wanda was shaking her awake on her bathroom floor. She had passed out. Naked. In her shower. Great.

The good news was that Wanda had used her own magic to trap all the guys in the living room as soon as they heard her fall, so she at least kept some of her dignity. Not much, but enough.

The longer she tried to deny she was sick, the more sick she got. By the end of hour three, she could barely even lift her head from the couch pillow. Clint had gone into full DadModeTM and heated her a bowl of soup, even managing to dig out a bottle of Tylenol and a small jar of chest rub from somewhere.

The fever was by far the worst part. No matter what she did, she always seemed to be too hot. And if she did manage to cool off, she got the shakes and had to be bundled up again. It was like having withdrawals without even using any drugs.

Melissa shifted where she was seated on the couch, her entire body feeling hot and itchy despite only being in a loose fitting tank top and shorts. She jumped when a cold hand landed on her shoulder, gasping at the feel of the cool against her skin. She almost whined when the hand pulled back.

"Are you doing okay?" Bucky asked, putting his metal arm back to his side.

Melissa reached up, taking the cool metal and placing it against her forehead. She could almost groan in pleasure, it felt so nice. Bucky took a seat beside her and Melissa took the opportunity to wrap herself completely around his arm, with her head leaning down on his shoulder.

She was passed out within minutes.

When Clint came over with another bowl of soup, Bucky levelled him with a glare worthy of the Winter Soldier at his most deadly.  
"If you wake her up, I promise that no one will find your body." 

Clint put the soup down on the table and stepped back with his hands raised in surrender. Sam looked like he wanted to chastise Bucky, but couldn't contain his own laughter to do so. And Scott seemed inclined to side with him on this one, Melissa hadn't gotten a decent sleep in days - she needed this. (He had found his paternal instincts bubbling to the surface too, watching her cry was painful.)

Wanda made sure to snap a picture of Clint's panicked face for when Melissa was feeling better.

**Day Seven**  
Melissa was almost over her 'magic flu'. She was no longer running a fever, and she could finally breathe through her nose again. Her only problem now was that her body was still so physically exhausted that she couldn't walk on her own or even feed herself.

Scott has enthusiastically jumped for the role of feeding her, getting far too much joy from her glare as he made train noises. She was still using Bucky to prop herself up, his arm wrapped comfortably around her shoulder.

"This is bullshit." She shouted, Scott having said one too many choo choos in the last five minutes. "Give me the damn spoon."

"Melissa," Sam said from the armchair, not even looking up from his book. "If you can lift your arm to hold that spoon, you can have it."

Melissa glowered at him, not even bothering to attempt lifting her arm. She knew it wasn't happening. Bucky sighed, holding his free arm out to Scott. 

"Give me the bowl."

Scott passed it over with a reluctant pout. Bucky rested it on the arm of the couch and readied a spoonful of the soup. Melissa sighed, resting her head on Bucky's shoulder but dutifully opening her mouth for the spoon.

Scott tried to make another choo choo, but Wanda smacked him across the back of the head with her newspaper.

Clint looked over to his left at Steve, who seemed to be watching the pair with a tight expression. He nudged him gently but Steve simply shook his head, standing up and disappearing into the bedroom.

Neither Bucky or Melissa noticed, so he quietly got up to follow the blonde. 

"Okay." Clint said, sitting down next to Steve on his bottom bunk. "Spill."

Steve sighed, dropping his head into his hands.  
"It's nothing, man." Steve tried to deny. "Just a memory."

"I'd believe you, except you're hiding in your bedroom like a teenager." Clint said, trying not to grin. "You remember I'm a dad, right?"

"Yeah, I know." Steve said, letting out a humourless chuckle.

Clint sat with him in silence, knowing that Steve would start talking once he was ready.

"It's just-" Steve started, cutting himself of before starting again. "I remember before the serum, when Bucky would have to take care of me like that. I can't help but think about how far away that feels now."

Clint nods in understanding, moving to gently clasp Steve's shoulder.

"She really is a good person, isn't she?" Steve asks quietly, turning to look at Clint.

"Yeah, she is." Clint agrees.

**Day Eighteen**  
"Clint, I swear to god if you don't get your fucking dumb ass down from there-"

"You're not my dad, Sam!"

"YOU ARE A GROWN MAN!"

Melissa woke that morning to her kitchen cupboards being pulled from the wall with an almighty crash, a dumb blonde on top of them. His excuse? Sam had thrown their frisbee up, but Steve and Bucky refused to lift one of them up to get it. 

Melissa looks over the mess, including the bleeding and almost unconscious Clint, and sighs.   
"I should have left you all in that fucking prison."

From the couch, Bucky started laughing and Scott raised his hands in mock anger.  
"What the hell did I do?!"

**Day Twenty Four  
** Melissa was more than surprised to receive a phone call from Happy Hogan. It had been almost a month since Siberia and while Tony had said he would contact her the next day, he clearly had not cared enough to do so.

She shushed the rest of the group as her phone started ringing, showing Steve the contact name before picking up. Steve knew what she meant; if Happy heard their voices, they would be exposed. He waved to them all, indicating that they had to be absolutely silent.

"Hello?" She answered, putting the call on speakerphone.

"Kid. I'm picking you up in five minutes, Boss wants to see you at the compound." He tells her. She can hear the traffic in the background, so she figured he was driving her way now.

"And if I say no?" She asks, anger rising in her chest. "It's been a month, Happy."

"Non optional." He responds. "You have four minutes."

Without saying goodbye, he hangs up the phone.

"Tony must know." Steve says, breaking the unbearable silence in the room.

"No, I made sure the cell camera's were looped and that all the back up saved data was destroyed." Melissa told them. Bucky shook his head at her answer.

"What if a guard remembered your face and identified you?" He said. "There were quite a few of them, that's a lot of loose ends."

"Okay, Psycho Assassin." Scott scoffed at him. "Let's just chill out for a second."

Melissa agreed with Bucky though, and started spiralling.  
"Fuck, what do I do?" She asked, dropping her head into her hands.

"You have to go." Sam said.

"No." Melissa argued. "What if I go and he does know, and someone comes here to take you back while I'm distracted?"

"Are you forgetting that we're Avengers?" Wanda chimed in from the kitchen. "We can take care of ourselves."

Melissa turned to look at her with raised eyebrows.  
"Oh, that's how you ended up in prison in the first place?"

"No, that was you." Steve reminded her, though his tone had more of a teasing edge to it than their argument on the first night.

"Ouch, but a fair point." Melissa replied, sending him a small smile.

"And what if he doesn't know anything and you avoid him?" Sam says. "Won't he get suspicious?"

Her phone chimes with a text. Happy was here.

"It's up to you." Clint told her.

**||**

The car ride to the compound was even more awkward than she had assumed it would be. Happy seemed to prefer that they didn't speak at all, which only sent Melissa's nerves sky high. It felt like she was being walked into a death sentence. 

Melissa spent the car ride texting updates to her second phone that she had left at home with the others, getting short responses from the group. Only Steve had the password, because she didn't trust the rest not to mess around with it, so the texts very much read in his voice. (And also because she couldn't give it to Bucky, he didn't know how to work the stupid thing.)

Happy walked her to Tony's lab, giving her a thumbs up and a good luck before leaving. Melissa waited outside for a few more seconds, enough to send a quick text to the others, before taking a deep breath going in. 

**||**

To say that the group panicked when she sent that text was an understatement. 

' _If I'm not home in 12 hours, run_.'

Bucky had damn near stormed out of the apartment, clearly intending on going after her, only to be talked down by Sam - the voice of reason. Bucky understood that charging into Tony's compound wasn't the best plan considering the last time he had seen the man, but he was still considering it.

"Let's say, for arguments sake, that we don't hear from her." Scott chimed in. "What is our plan?"

"We go after her, obviously." Bucky snapped. 

"What, in her hand me down clothes?" Clint scoffed. "We're gonna bust into the Avengers compound in pyjamas? Is that really our plan?"

"She had her own back up plan." Wanda whispered, almost hoping that they wouldn't hear her. Bucky did, of course, turning to face her.

"What back up plan?" He asked, eyes wide. Wanda bit her lip, wondering if telling them was actually a good idea.

"What back up plan, Wanda?" Steve asked, bringing out his 'cap' voice.

"She's had emergency 'getaway' bags packed for us, hidden in her room, since we first got here." Wanda says, her voice quiet but audible in the otherwise silent apartment.

"How does that help?" Sam asked, looking confused. Yeah, they could use a change of clothes but that wasn't going to do them much good.

"She got us fake passports, and birth certificates." Wanda explains, ignoring their looks of shock. "There's money in each one as well, she wouldn't tell me how much."

"What the fuck." Clint said, his voice harsh.

"She told me that she wanted to make sure we could get out of the country, if anything went wrong!" Wanda told them, trying to defend Melissa's actions.

Bucky shook his head, ignoring the others when they started arguing about the pros and cons of her plan. They didn't need getaway bags, they were going to be fine.

**||**

It had been twelve hours exactly since her last text, and she wasn't home.

The group sat in the living room, completely in silence. Bucky was practically shaking he was so wired, and Wanda looked ready to burst into tears. 

It was time to make a choice. He didn't want to be the one to make it, but it was clear that no one else was going to - except maybe Scott, who had taken to glancing at his watch every few seconds, and Clint. The others would sit here and wait, hoping she would come back.

"Get the bags." Steve said, his voice quiet.

"No!" Wanda cried, dropping her head into her hands. 

"Steve, I'm not leaving without her." Bucky told him, shaking his head.

"I don't think she's coming back." Clint said back, agreeing with Steve.

Sam looked torn. He didn't want to leave Melissa behind, but he knew that she had made this plan for a reason. Scott stood up and walked into Melissa's room, grabbing the bags from the wardrobe. He checked each ones passport, handing the right one out to everyone. 

Bucky threw his bag down, glaring at it in disgust.

"We are not leaving." Bucky said, his voice rising in anger. "Not until we know she's okay."

"And what if we can't know?" Steve retaliated. "What if they've already put her in a prison, and we're next?"

"Then so be it, Steve." Bucky replied. "We're not letting her take the fall for us."

"It kind of looks like she already has." Sam told him.

Just as it looked like Bucky was going to start really shouting at them, the front door burst open. The group jumped up into fighting positions, Wanda's hands lighting up red as well.

"Oh thank _god_ , you didn't leave."

Bucky almost ran over, pulling Melissa in for a hug. She gave as good as she got, tightly wrapping her arms around his neck.

The group relaxed, tossing their getaway bags down onto the floor and settling down onto the couches and armchairs. Wanda moved over to give Melissa a hug of her own.

"What the hell happened to you?" She asked.

Melissa huffed out a sigh, rolling her eyes.   
"Tony wanted to apologise for pretty much leaving me behind after that whole drama by making me a new suit." She tells them. "We worked on it all day until I finally convinced him I had to go home. Happy was driving me, but we got stuck in traffic."

"Ah, New York." Sam sighed wistfully, successfully easing the tension in the room. 

Bucky sat down on the big couch, pulling Melissa down by his side. 

"What's with the secret escape bags?" Clint asked, kicking his own in emphasis.

"I wanted to make sure that if you needed to disappear quickly, you could." Melissa told them, like it was a stupid question.

"Do you have one?" Scott asked. "Cause I couldn't see another one."

"She doesn't." Wanda says, before Melissa can make up an excuse. "Because she was going to offer herself up as bait to give us a head start."

"Snitch." Melissa scoffs, shoving the older girls shoulder.

"You're part of this team now, Lissa." Bucky tells her. "If we get found out, we're not leaving you behind to take the fall."

The others nod their heads in agreement.

"Isn't sacrificing one person better than losing them all?" Melissa counters, seeming confused by their anger in her actions. "One life versus six, there's no math there."

Steve has a momentary flashback of Natasha saying the same thing in Sokovia, but forces himself to stay in the present.  
"We don't trade lives, Melissa. You're stuck with us now."

"And besides, I'm not going anywhere with this name." Clint scoffs, throwing his passport down on the table. "Charles Borelli? I sound like a mobster."

"Didn't you grow up in the circus?" Sam asks, shooting the man a wry grin.

"You got a problem, man?"

"I never said I did."

"You might if you keep going."

"Don't start."

**Day Forty  
** After spending forty days locked inside the small apartment, the men were starting to get restless. They couldn't wander around outside, in case they were spotted, so Melissa made a plan.

She set up a picnic on the roof, underneath an old patio umbrella she had found in the buildings basement storage.

To say they were grateful was an understatement. Melissa was pulled into a group hug that rivalled any hug she had received in her entire life.

The group lounged out on the roof for hours, watching the sun dip behind the sky and the stars come out. The group relished in the fresh air, not realising how much they had taken being outside for granted.

Melissa promise they would do this as often as they could, so long as they were careful about it. All it would take is someone looking over from another building and recognising them for their cover to be blown.

But they were still grateful. She truly went above and beyond for them.

**Day Fifty Five  
** Peter was suspicious. 

It was entirely Scott's fault, technically. Melissa had asked her housemates to hide in their rooms for two hours, just long enough for her to have dinner with Peter, and Scott had fallen off his damn couch. Well, he was pushed by Clint, but he had antagonised him.

Melissa tried to tell him it was just her upstairs neighbour, but Peter definitely didn't believe her. She couldn't tell him about the others, she knew he was giving daily reports to Happy about being SpiderMan. 

They would be ruined if Peter accidentally said something to Happy, he would have Tony down here in minutes to haul them all off to jail. 

She hated lying to her best friend, she wanted to tell him so badly but she did what she had to do. She needed to keep her new friends safe too.

**Day Sixty  
** "This shouldn't be normal, why is this normal?" Melissa asked, standing in her bedroom doorway with Wanda - both very confused.

They honestly couldn't believe what they were seeing. Steve had Scott on his shoulders, and Bucky had Clint on his. They were playing badminton in Melissa's living room, Sam acting as the referee.

"Typical day in the life of a fugitive superhero." Clint said, grunting as Bucky lunged for Scott's next hit. Steve cheered as he missed, dancing around with Scott on his shoulders.

"Wonderful." Wanda sighed, moving to make herself coffee.

"We should start a YouTube channel." Melissa laughed, following the other girl. "'How to keep your fugitive superheroes entertained'."

Wanda rolled her eyes and scoffed at her.  
"I'm going to pretend you didn't sat that." 


	10. "You're being reckless."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa is concerned, and Peter lets a secret slip.

**|| "You're being reckless!"**

Melissa loved Peter, she really did, but she was worried about him. Her best friend had started looking more and more tired as time went on, he came back from patrols so late that she had started waiting up to make sure he got home alright.

She had checked his school records, using Scott to hack into their system, and saw that his grades had all taken a hit.

It was late one night while she was laying in bed that Melissa had feeling something was going to go wrong. She hurriedly got up, accidental waking Wanda in her haste, and slipped into her new suit.

"What are you doing?" Wanda asked, her voice thick with sleep.

"Nothing, go back to sleep." Melissa told her, slipping out of their room. 

Unfortunately for her, she hadn't bargained on any of the guys still being up. Bucky, Steve and Sam were watching a movie on the couch. They all stood up when they realised she was in her suit.

"What's going on?" Steve asked, slipping into his 'captain' persona.

"I'm worried about Peter." Melissa sighed, quickly tying her hair back. "I have a bad feeling, I need to make sure he's okay."

"Why would you need your suit for that?" Sam asked, frowning.

It's in that exact moment that Melissa realises something; they don't know Peter is Spiderman. She stills, momentarily wondering what to do, then sighs again.

"Uhm, okay. So, Peter might possibly be Spiderman." She says quickly, waiting for their reactions.

Bucky looks at her, eyes wide in shock, Steve drops his head into his hands, and Sam sits back down on the couch.

"I hit him with my shield." 

"I threw a _sign at him_."

" _I dropped him **out of a window**!" _

Melissa grins at the last one.  
"I told you it was harsh."

"How old did you say he was?" Steve asks, sounding like he knows he wont enjoy the answer.

"Fifteen." Melissa tells him, slipping on her mask. "If he's in trouble, I have to go help."

"Go." Steve nods, holding on to Bucky's arm so that he can't follow the girl.

Melissa focuses all her energy onto finding Peter, opening up a portal and stepping through. She comes up in from of _Queens Community Bank._ Inside she can see a robber, all wearing horrific knock off Avenger masks. She watches as Spiderman jumps down from the roof and goes in after them. 

He awkwardly tries to strike a casual but cool-looking pose, and then clears his throat.  
"What’s up, guys? You forgot your PIN number?"

The robbers turn to face him. 

"Whoa! You’re the Avengers." Peter fake gasps. "What are you guys doing here?"

One of the robbers loads his gun but Peter uses his web to grab it and hit “Iron Man” and “Thor” with it. He then pushes “Hulk” away. His sticky feet hold “Thor” and throw him into a wall.

Melissa moves closer and continues to watch. She doesn't want to interfere unless she has to, she definitely doesn't want to expose herself to Peter.

"Thor. Hulk. Good to finally meet you guys. I thought you’d be more handsome in person."

Peter is hanging upside down from the ceiling when “Iron Man” starts to throw aimless punches at him.

"Iron Man. Hey, what are you doing robbing a bank? You’re a billionaire."

“Hulk” comes up with a high tech weapon. Peter quickly dodges a punch from “Iron Man,” who loses balance and ends up punching “Hulk” instead. They both fall to the ground. Meanwhile, “Captain America” succeeds in picking up the high tech device that had been used to pull the metal chunk off the ATM and aims it at Peter. Peter jumps at him but is suspended in air for a short time. 

"Hey! Oh, this feels so weird." Peter says, his voice distorted.

He is thrown against the wall, harshly dropping back down.

"Whoa, what is that thing?" He asks.

He is once more caught in the force field of the device and is thrown back and forth between the ceiling and the floor.

"I’m starting... to think... you’re not... the Avengers!"

With his sticky fingers, he holds onto the ground and shoots his web at a desk in the corner. He pulls on it and hits “Captain America” with his force field device.

"Alright guys, let’s wrap this up. It’s a school night."

Peter kicks “Thor” into a glass wall, making it crack. “Iron Man” holds up the force field device, but before he can do anything, Peter webs the device against the glass, jumps onto “Iron Man,” and checks his face underneath the mask.

"So, how do jerks like you get tech like this?"

“Hulk” fires up the device that cuts through metal, which Peter can see is visibly damaged.

"No. Wait, wait, wait!"

Melissa rushed through the door, throwing our her hands to contain the blast. She directs it away from them and out the glass doors, accidentally aiming it at a shop across the street. The deli-grocery bursts into flames.

Peter doesn't even acknowledge her, running out of the bank and over to the decimated store.

Melissa follows, staring in horror at what she had done.

She watches as Peter helps Mr. Delmar, who is wheezing and coughing but alive, out of the burning building with a cat is in his arms. Peter glances over at her but focuses on the bank, which is now severely lacking criminals.

The cat starts to meow so Peter hands him to Mr. Delmar, and then moves over to Melissa.

"What the hell are you-" 

Melissa cuts him of by wrapping a hand around his wrist and portaling them to their buildings rooftop. Forgetting all about secrecy, she pulls off her mask and glares at him. 

"Are you crazy?!" She shouts.

Peter pulls his own mask off, gaping at her.  
"Melissa?" He asks, not believing his own eyes.

"Peter, I asked you a fucking question. Are. You. _CRAZY?!"_ She punctuates each word with a hand gesture. 

Peter finally snaps back to himself, his eyes hardening.  
"Am I crazy?" He asks, sarcastically.

"Yes, Peter." Melissa snaps. "If I hadn't controlled that blast, you could have died."

"And _you_ could have killed Mr Delmar." Peter snaps back.

"I've never seen that kind of weaponry before, you're lucky I could control it at all." Melissa says, hoping that Peter could hear the desperation in her voice. 

“I didn't know they had anything like that!” Peter tells her, his tone bordering on a whine.

Melissa huffed, rubbing tiredly at her eyes.  
“Peter, you are fifteen years old.” She says, quietly. “You shouldn't be stopping bank robberies, superpowers or not."

Peter throws his arms up with a sigh.  
“What should I be doing, then?” He asks.

“Homework? Drugs? I don't know!” Melissa cries. “Normal teen stuff, not vigilante superhero stuff.”

Something in Peter snaps, causing him to straighten up and look Melissa right in the eye.  
”Well I’m not normal, am I?” He says, anger seeping from his words. “And this is hypocritical coming from you! How long have you been the Siren?”

Melissa flinches at the accusation, folding in on herself slightly.  
“Technically, I never was.” She mutters, looking away from him and out across the Queens skyline. “The name was only used cause I couldn't use my real name in front of you.

Peter stares at her in shock, so she felt the need to add on;  
“It was Tony’s idea.”

Peter suddenly looked upset, bordering on betrayed.  
“You didn’t tell me you had powers.” He said, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear him at all. 

“You didn’t tell me either.” Melissa replied.

Peter felt himself beginning to smirk.  
”You already knew.”

“You didn't know that I knew.”

Peter actually did laugh at that one, a short bark that eased some of the tension in the air.   
“This could go on for a while.” 

“Yeah, it could.” Melissa smiled, pulling the young boy in for a hug. “I’ll explain everything about my powers, I promise, but you really need to listen to me. You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

Peter held her just as tightly, his voice muffled into her shoulder when he speaks.  
“I know what I’m doing.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” Melissa replies, equally as quiet as she pulled away from the hug. “But let's get inside before we start arguing again.”

“Okay.” Peter agreed, moving towards the fire escape they both knew all to well. 

They reach his bedroom window, where Peter slides the top open and looks inside. Aunt May passes in front of his open door, but doesn’t notice them. 

Peter climbs into the bedroom, clinging to his ceiling while Melissa slips in after him, and closes the window with his foot. He pulls off his mask, throws it away, and crawls across the ceiling. Trying to make no sound, he pushes the door closed and hops down to the floor. They hear a quiet click as the door latch slides into place.

Peter turns towards back to find Ned sitting on his bed; shocked, mouth agape. The Lego Death Star in his hands crashes to the ground and breaks down into pieces.

Melissa drops her head into her hands. 

”What was that?” May shouts from outside.

”Uh, nothing! It’s nothing!” Peter yells back, still facing a shocked Ned. 

"You’re the Spider-Man. From YouTube." Ned gasps, his voice - thankfully - quiet.

"I’m not. I’m not." Peter tries to deny.

Peter presses the spider emblem on his chest. The suit becomes baggy and falls down from his body. Melissa quickly strips of her own suit, grabbing the clothes she had last left here and throwing them on. (Peter and Melissa had drawers of clothes in each others room, they had been raised as practically siblings.)

"You were on the ceiling." Ned says, pointing upwards.

"No, I wasn’t." Peter, again, tries to deny. "Ned, what are you doing in my room?"

"May let me in. You said we were gonna finish the Death Star!" Ned exclaims, pointing to the shattered LEGO set on the floor.

"You can’t just bust into my room!" Peter exclaims, his voice frustrated. 

The three stand closer together as they her may approaching, Melissa kicking her discarded suit under the bed. May opens the door, setting her hair free from a low bun. She waves a rag in front of her face to dissipate the smoke coming from the kitchen.

"The turkey meatloaf recipe is a disaster." May laughs. "Let’s go to dinner. Thai? Ned, you want Thai? Oh hi, Melissa sweetie, Thai?"

The three teens speak at the same time.

"Yes." Comes from Ned.

"Sure." From Melissa.

"No." From a slightly louder Peter. "He’s got a thing. Ned does, a thing." He lightly nudges Ned's shoulder to get him to agree.

"A thing to do after." Ned confirms.

May doesn't look convinced, but turns to Melissa.  
"How bout you, sweetheart?" She asks.

Melissa catches Peter's pleading gaze, and discreetly winks at him  
"I should probably head home, actually."

"Okay." May goes to leave, but waves a finger at Peter. "Maybe put on some clothes."

Peter grabs a sweater off his computer chair with a grimace as May closes the door behind her. Once it closes, Ned finally clicks.

"Oh, she doesn’t know?" He asks, pointing after May.

"Nobody knows." Peter tells him, slipping on a pair of jeans. "I mean, Mr. Stark knows because he made my suit, and Melissa does too, but that’s it."

"Tony Stark made you that?" Ned whispers, pointing at his suit. "Are you an Avenger?"

Peter hesitates for a second before answering.  
"Yeah, basically." 

Melissa wants to scoff at him, but stops at the excited look in both boys eyes.

"Whoa..." Ned says, then turns to face Melissa. "And what about you? Do you have powers?"

Melissa doesn't say anything, simply lifting a finger in a shushing motion and winks. Her evasive answer seems to be answer enough though, as Ned's eyes light up in glee.

"You can’t tell anybody about this. You gotta keep it a secret." Peter tells Ned, pleading with his friend. 

"A secret? Why?" Ned whines.

"Cause we're actually supervillains on the down low." Melissa says, earning herself a rather hard slap on the shoulder from Peter. "Ouch, Pete, super strength versus my fragile arm."

"You know what she’s like." Peter says, pointing after May and ignoring Melissa. "If she finds out people try and kill me every single night, she’s not going to let me do this anymore. Come on, Ned, please.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I’ll level with you." Ned says, looking Peter in the eye. "I don’t think I can keep this a secret. This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, Peter!"

"Ned, May cannot know. I cannot do that to her right now, you know?" Peter says, his voice tight. "I mean, everything that’s happened with her, I... Please."

Ned loses some of his excitement at what Peter is implying, and nods his head.  
"Okay."

"Just swear it, okay?" Peter asks him, rather desperately.

"I swear." Ned agrees.

"Thank you." Peter sighs.

Peter walks away, running his hands through his hair.

"I can’t believe this is happening right now." He mutters to himself. 

"Can I try the suit on?" Ned asks, picking it up. 

"No." Peter replies, taking it from him and hiding it in his wardrobe.

"How does it work? Is it magnets? How do you shoot the strings?"

"I’m gonna tell you about this at school tomorrow, okay?" Peter says, passing Ned his things and ushering him to the door.

"Great. Okay, well, wait, then." The two boys pause. "How do you do this and the Stark internship?"

Peter looks at Ned, incredulously. Melissa does scoff this time.   
"This _is_ the Stark internship."

"Oh."

"Just get out of here."

Peter shuts Ned out, leans his back against the door, and facepalms.

"Nice going, SpiderBoy." Melissa scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Oh, cause you were so much help!" Peter sasses back.

Melissa shakes her head with a laugh, moving towards towards the widow to make her exit.  
"Go have dinner with May, we’ll talk later." She tells him, sliding it open.

"Okay." Peter sighs, running his hands though his messy hair.

"Hey." Melissa says, halfway out the window. Peter turns back to face her. "I love you, Pete. Always."

Peter smiles and ambles over to give her a half armed hug, her head resting briefly on his shoulder.  
"Love you too, Mel. Forever."


	11. "Please can I hit him?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Cap Squad are worried, and Melissa attempts to be a normal teenager.

**|| "Please can I hit him?"**

Despite most of them being asleep when she left, the Cap Squad had gathered in the living room when Melissa returns. They all stand when they see her, shouting over each other to ask if she's okay.

"I'm fine!" She shouts, wriggling out of Wanda's hold - and straight into Bucky's. "What's wrong?" 

Steve un-mutes the TV and points to the news story being played. Its security footage from the bank robbery, of her directing the blast at the bodega and the two vigilantes disappearing through her portal.

_"There is no known alias for Spider-Man's accomplice, though our sources claim that government officials have taken interest into unmasking them. Our insider on this new masked vigilante claims that the new enhanced individual may have a connection to the Rogue Avengers, and the dispute over the Sokovia Accords that occurred just over two months ago. Who is this new sorcerer?"_

Melissa cringes, rubbing the back of her neck in an anxious motion.  
"Well, that doesn't sound like good news."

Scott huffed a laugh at her comment, but schooled his face back to seriousness when Clint elbowed him.

"What were those weapons?" Steve asked, rewinding and pausing on the energy blast.

"If I knew that, maybe I could have avoided almost barbecuing Mr Delmar." Melissa replied, finally freeing herself from Bucky's grasp and moving to lean against the kitchen island.

Clint rolled his eyes at her.  
"Just tell us what happened." He said, sitting down in his usual spot on the armchair.

"Hell if I know." Melissa laughed drily. "I showed up just in time to watch Peter almost get blasted into next week."

"Is he alright?" Sam asked, concern for the young boy clear in his tone. Melissa appreciated that, though she didn't call him on it.

"Yeah, he's fine." She tells him, moving to sit on the large couch. "I brought him home and he's going out for dinner with May. He may also know who I am now, so that's great." 

She wanted to make the last part sarcastic, but it only came out as exhausted and resigned. Bucky sat on her left, Wanda on her right.

"I can't imagine that went well." Wanda commented, reaching for Melissa's hand in a supportive gesture. Melissa gave her a squeeze and a small smile, thanking her.

"Better than I expected, but still not how I wanted to tell him." She replied, shrugging her shoulders.

"Gotta roll with the punches." Steve said, aiming for helpful - and unfortunately missing by quite a bit.

Melissa gave another dry laugh, sinking further back into the couch.  
"It feels more like I'm getting a beating than a few punches." She huffed.

"Thinks will work out, you just need to give it time." Sam puts in.

"Huh, it sure looks like it." Melissa scoffs, sarcasm pouring off her words. "My fifteen year best friend is swinging around the city at night almost getting blown up, I'm harbouring six fugitives, and government officials are trying to find out my identity. Things are going _swimmingly_."

"Ouch." Clint said, sucking in a breath between his teeth.

"I don't mean to yell." Melissa told them, letting go of Wanda's hold to her head into her hands. "This just isn't how I'd pictured my life turning out."

"It wasn't exactly our first choice either." Scott said, quietly. 

Melissa felt the guilt building as she looked over at him. Of course this wasn't where he wanted to be, why would he rather be here than with his daughter? Did she really not think about how Clint would feel, not being able to see his wife and children? They were separated from their families, and here she was being selfish.

"I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." She apologises, looking around at them all. "I'm just worried about Peter. He's a kid, he's like my little brother. He's been through too much already."

"You always seem to forget that you're a kid too." Steve told her, his voice tentative so as not to further upset her.

"Hardly." Melissa scoffed. Steve gave her a look, but kept going.

"You may not be the same age as Peter, but you're still a teenager. You need to give yourself a break." He said. 

Melissa grimaced. She knew Steve had a point, but he just didn't understand. Their history, their _bond_ \- it wasn't something she could explain.  
"I can't." She stressed. "Not now that Pete knows about those weapons. I know him too well, he won't stop until he find out where they're coming from."

"So. you're gonna do it with him." Bucky tries to confirm, not looking like he agrees with her methods in the slightest.

"No. _I'm_ gonna get rid of them, before he can put himself in danger." Melissa explains, sounding convinced in her plan.

"That puts _you_ in danger." Wanda says, concern lacing her tone.

"I don't care about that." Melissa tells her firmly, shaking her head.

"What if we do?" Bucky chimes in, taking hold of her wrist so that she'll face him. He lowers his voice before continuing. "What if I do?"

The rest of the heroes, if they heard him, don't make any comment.

"I appreciate it, I really do, but it's not like you can leave the apartment to help." Melissa points out, gesturing around them all at her home. "I have to do this alone."

"Why don't you just cloak us with magic or something?" Scott pipes up, his voice gaining excitement at the idea. "Even just one of us? Then at least you won't be alone."

Melissa shakes her head.  
"Cloaking is incredibly taxing, especially an extended hold." She explains. "It would drain me too quickly, and then I wouldn't be able to fight."

They all take a second, considering their options. Unfortunately, it seems like Melissa is right. There isn't a way for them to help while stuck indoors.

"I don't like it, you're too young to be dealing with things like this." Steve says, sounding frustrated with the situation.

"And what about Peter? What is he?"Melissa asks him, raising her voice.

Steve shakes his head in denial.  
"That's-" Melissa doesn't let him finish.

"No, I'll tell you what he is." Melissa says, her voice sharp. "He's fifteen years old, he's a kid. And if I let him get hurt, then what's the point in even having my powers? To make stupid cupcakes and invade people's minds?!"

"You can't put that on yourself." Bucky tells her, mildly frustrated by her self sacrificial actions.

"Yes, I can. if he gets hurt or if he d-" She takes a deep breath before continuing. "If he _dies_ , it'll be my fault. Okay? I have to do this."

"At least keep us in the loop." Bucky says, his gaze pleading. "Don't go off on some mission without having us on standby - fuck the government. If you need us, we'll be there."

Melissa wanted to tell him that she wouldn't let him get in trouble because of her, but she couldn't get the words out. The rest of the team had the same expressions on their faces, making it clear they agreed with Bucky. Fondness settled in her chest, making her breaths come easier. 

"Okay." She agreed, giving them a small but genuine smile. "Thanks guys."

The group seemed to relax at her acceptance, settling down into their seats.

"How bout a movie before bed?" Sam proposed, picking up the TV remote. "Something classic and comforting, Disney?"

"That'd be nice." Melissa replied softly, leaning her head on Bucky's shoulder.

She really did have the best friends.

**||**

Melissa was more than surprised to have Peter calling her at three pm, right after his school let out. Usually he headed straight out to patrol, and came home sometime before one am. She stood up from the couch, earning a confused look from Bucky which turned into understanding when she showed him the caller ID.

"What did you do?" She asks, not bothering to say hello.

" _First of all, I'm hurt at the insinuation that I only call you when I need something_." Pete replies. " _Second, I only wanted to ask you a question_."

"For the last time, I'm not building LEGO sets with you. You know I hate how fiddly those pieces are-" Melissa groaned. Her complaint at least earned her a laugh from the super soldier eavesdropper on the couch, which in turn prompted Melissa to throw an orange at his head.

" _That's not it_." Peter cuts her off. " _I was wondering if you wanted to come to a party tonight, but now that I've said it I realise how stupid it is. I'm sorry_."

Melissa paused for a moment, her brain struggling to understand what she had just heard. 

"A party?" She asked, her voice raising an octave. "Y-You're inviting me to a party?"

Bucky turned around to face her, questioning written all over his face. 

" _Yeah. Ned told Liz that I knew Spider-Man and Liz has a crush on him, and I like **Liz**. But I just- I can't go alone_." Peter said, his words slurring together as he rambled. He took a deep breath before continuing. " _I need you_."

Melissa wasn't sure what to do. She hadn't been to a party since she was invited to Emily Vaughan's ninth birthday - which ended horrible when Ryan Carson smashed her birthday cake and blamed it on Melissa - and she wasn't a big fan of drinking or being around alcohol. But Peter was important to her, and this was important to him.

"Yeah, sure." She said, quietly. "I can come with for a little bit. When is it?"

" _Thank you so much_." Peter sighed in relief. " _May's driving me and Ned. Meet at mine's in an hour? Or how long do you need to get ready? Girl's have to do make-up and stuff, right?"_

"An hour's fine, Pete." Melissa smiled. "I'll see you soon."

She hung up the phone, turning back to face Bucky and Wanda - who had emerged from their room as she was finishing her call.

"You're going to a party?" Bucky asked, watching as Melissa seemed to accept her fate.

"Apparently I am." Melissa replies, putting her phone down on the kitchen island.

"Why?" Wanda asks.

"Pete has a crush on a girl, I guess he needs moral support?" Melissa tells them, gesturing with her hands. Honestly, she's not too sure how she got roped into that. She was agreeing before her brain caught up with her mouth.

"That sounds fun." Wanda says, smiling as she leans across the back of the couch.

As much as Melissa wants to smile too, at the sight of her friend so laid back and comfortable, she can't quite get her body to cooperate.  
"I'm not really a fan of parties." She explains.

"Really? Why not?" Bucky asks, raising his eyebrows. "I thought all teens got drunk and stupid."

"Not me. I was too busy being a HYDRA experiment." Wanda shrugs.

Bucky turns to her, softly grinning, and places a hand on her shoulder.  
"You truly get me."

Wanda shoves his hand away, feigning annoyance though she's fighting a smile of her own. They both turn back to Melissa, waiting for an answer to Bucky's question.

"I just don't like drunk people, bad memories." Melissa tried to look nonchalant, but Bucky saddles her with a searching look anyway. "Don't give me that look, it's not important. We'll have a heart to heart later if we must, but right now I have to go get ready."

"Oh, can I help?" Wanda asked, jumping up from the couch with an excited gasp.

"Duh, I need your opinions." Melissa laughed, holding her hand out for Wanda to take. As they neared her bedroom door, she paused and turned back to face Bucky. "You think you and the other four dumb-asses can handle feeding yourselves for the night?"

Bucky raised a hand and placed it over his heart, his jaw dropped in an exaggerated gasp.  
"I am _insulted_ , in my _own home_ -"

"You mean in _my_ home-" Melissa laughed over him.

"I cannot believe this betrayal!" Bucky shouted, throwing his head back in mock anguish.

"I'm sure you'll live." Melissa said, smiling at him.

"Why's Bucky being a drama queen?!" Clint shouted from the guys room.

"Oh you wanna _go_ , Barton?!"

"Maybe I do, Barnes!"

"Get your lazy ass out here, we'll go right now!"

"You're on, old man!"

**||**

After what feels like forever, May finally pulls the car over outside of Liz’s house. Exciting, upbeat music pours out onto the street as May turns to face the two boys in the back of the car.

"House party in the suburbs. Oh, I remember these. Kind of jealous." She tells them, a smile on her face.

"It’ll be a night to remember." Ned says.

Melissa, who had been clued into the plan at Peter's house, rolls her eyes an Ned's obviousness. 

"Ned, some hats wear men. You wear that hat." May laughs.

"Yeah, it gives me confidence." Ned replies, tipping said hat at her.

May simply hums, her gaze slipping over to Peter. He is looking out the window, removed from the merry conversation taking place beside him.

"This is a mistake." Peter says, turning to face May. "Hey, let’s just go home."

"Oh, Peter. I know. I know it’s really hard trying to fit in with all the changes your body’s going through. It’s flowering now." May says in a soothing tone.

The absurd, out-of-place speech makes Peter chuckle. Melissa smothers a laugh in her hand.

"Uh-huh." Peter agrees, a grin making it's way onto his face.

"He’s so stressed out lately." May says to Ned, pointedly ignoring the laughing girl in the passenger seat.

"What helps with stress is going to a party. We should go to the party." Ned says, looking over at Peter.

"Yeah, let’s do it." Peter finally agrees. "Yeah. I’m gonna go. I’m gonna go."

Peter opens the car door and steps out.

"Peter." May calls after him.

Peter stops and leans in to listen to his aunt through the window. Ned and Melissa get out behind them, moving to amble across the street.

"Have fun, okay?" May says, smiling.

"I will." Peter nods.

"Okay." May replies softly, moving to drive away.

"Bye, May!" Ned calls after her.

Ned waves with a huge grin on his face, Melissa offering a small wave of her own. Peter closes the door and catches up to them. They approach the house side by side.

"Dude, you have the suit, right?" Ned asks, looking to Peter for confirmation.

Peter pulls up his sleeve in order to offer Ned a glimpse of his Spider-Man suit under it.

"Yeah." Peter tells him, pulling his sleeve back down.

"This is gonna change our lives." Ned says, excitement clear in his voice.

The trio enter the crowded house party and glance around anxiously. Peter looks especially nervous. Two girls pass by in front of them, not taking any interest in their arrival. In the living room, Flash is running a DJ station looking ostentatious as ever in headphones and a yellow shirt.

"Okay." Ned says, taking charge. "We’re gonna have Spider-Man swing in, say you guys are tight, and then I get a fist bump or one of those half bro-hugs."

"Can’t believe you two are at this lame party." A voice says to them.

Michelle, who Melissa does not know, carelessly throws her hair back trying to act cool. She is in the process of spreading jam on a slice of toast.

"But you’re here too." Ned points out.

"Am I?" Michelle responds, taking a bite out of her toast and walking away.

"Oh, my gosh." A new female voice says.

When Peter hears Liz’s voice, his eyes go wide. He turns his head towards the sound. Liz walks down the hallway to them.

"Hey, guys. Cool hat, Ned." Liz says to them. "And hi, I don't think I know you."

"Hi, Liz." Ned says.

"Hi, Liz." Peter’s high-pitched and squeaky voice betrays his nervousness.

"Hi, I'm Melissa. I hope you don't mind me crashing." Melissa introduces herself, holding out a hand for Liz to shake. She does, giving the older girl a smile.

"Of course not! I’m so happy you guys came. There’s pizza and drinks, help yourself." Liz tells them, gesturing to the kitchen area.

"What a great party." Peter says, gesturing around. 

"Thanks." Liz smiles.

The sound of glass breaking catches their attention. Liz's expression turns sheepish.

"Oh, I... My parents will kill me if anything’s broken. I gotta-" She points her, in the direction of the crash.

"Yeah." Peter agrees, not knowing what else to say.

"Have fun." Liz tells them, gesturing to the party. 

"Bye." Ned says, giving her a small wave.

"Bye." Liz says, walking away.

"What a nice girl." Melissa comments, a soft smile on her face.

"Dude, what are you doing? She’s here. Spider it up." Ned says, his voice a hissed whisper so that no one will overhear.

"No, no, no. I can’t... I cannot do this." Peter says, his nervousness showing. "Spider-Man is not a party trick, okay? Look, I’m just gonna... be myself."

"Peter, no one wants that." Ned sighs.

"Dude."

Peter starts to walk away, a little bit hurt by the remark.

"Penis Parker, what’s up?" Flash calls over the microphone, playing a honking sound on the stereo system. "So, where’s your pal Spider-Man? Let me guess. In Canada with your imaginary girlfriend?"

_He plays the noise again as everyone around them laughs - except the three of them._

"That’s not Spider-Man. That’s just Ned in a red shirt." Flash shouts.

The crowd boos Peter, laughing at Flash's comments.

"Please let me hit him." Melissa mutters, her voice almost a growl.

Peter frowns, grabbing her arm and pulling her away with him. Something steels in his expression as he glances back at Ned, his look becoming determined.

**||**

Pete's shirt drops to the floor and joins the already discarded pairs of jeans and shoes. The two are standing on Liz's roof. He steps over his clothes, wearing his Spider-Man suit, and pulls off his T-shirt. As he mutters to himself, he tries to find a way to make his voice sound different.

"Hey, what’s up? I’m Spider-Man. Just thought I’d swing by and say hello to my buddy Peter." He says. "Oh, what’s up, Ned? Hey, where’s Peter, anyways? He must be around..." He trails off, sighing.

Melissa says nothing from beside him, just hoping that her being there is enough support for him. They both watch the party through glass walls, Peter with a discouraged look.

"God, this is stupid. What am I doing?" Peter asks Melissa, glancing over to her.

The two heroes can spot Ned, turning in place and looking around. Just as Pete looks like he's going to put on the mask, something in the distance catches both of their attention. A bright blue explosion. They both stare at it with concern, Melissa's hands lighting up purple.

"What the hell?" Peter mumbled, standing upright.

"Don't you dare." Melissa warned, placing her hand on the younger boys shoulder to keep him in place. With a wave of her hand, her suit forms around her. "You stay here, try to enjoy your party, and tell Flash he's a dick. I've got this."

Before she could give him a chance to argue, she opened up her portal and slipped through. Peter was still for all of three seconds, and then he jumped from the roof.

Melissa should have realised he wasn't going to stay put.


End file.
